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DU 22 
COPY 1 



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The dedication of books is out of fashion. 
All the more reason for this. 

The travels here recorded brought us into 
such contact and relation with the heart of 
things in nature and society^ as we had found 
no analogy for in our experience. And we 
should grossly cheat ourselves, not thus to cele- 
brate the sweetest, finest, deepest element in 
the most informing and inspiring journey of 
our lives. 

And so we dedicate this little book to the 
homes that received us, as though by kin, or 
life-long love, entitled, in Jlawaii, Samoa, 
Tonga, Fiji, Xew Zealand and Australia. 




Haicaiiati Fishenyian. 



3o^n <B»'It7ooeee^ 




Chicago 
^^e (Ueti? (Potce (preea 



LIBRARY of OONORESsT 
Twe C4ei«4 Received ] 
DEC 31 1906 
A CooyrlffW Entry ^ 

J/ (.^^7^ 
COPY B, 






c 



C' 'PTBIGHT BY JOHX G. VTOOLLET 
1906 



fOReaioRD 

We two went Maying in Marclx, 1^05. Wa 
had eaten the fruit of a good many 'kinds of 
trees of good and evil, and at last had taken 
voluntarily to the Pacific ocean, to get away 
from the postman and c€ol down the hot Hues 
of our altruism, cruising in the South East 
trades. 

We had for years, fairly fought rest as little 
children fight the sandman, but at last in utter 
weariness, had surrendered to an open debauch 
of utter selfishness. 

Once beyond the Farilones, we opened every 
door and window of our souls to take in the 
power of the sea, the quietness of the sky and 
the healing of the South wind, in mighty gulps, 
regardless. 

We knew the course and the ship. Four years 
before we had gone that way, younger and 
lighter hearted. We had had just a tantalizing 
dip into the charm of the Islands on the way, 
just touched and left behind. But now we 
were going straight into the hearts of them to 
live awhile and make ourselves at home. 

That siren story that Penelope believed so 



sweetly, was no great stretch of her good lord^s 
imagination. These South Sea islands still sing 
the siren songs to passing mariners, who once 
they land, would gladh^^stay forever. 

_^e got well and got rested, and got rich in 
friendships that will never fade, and had the 
"best time" of our busy lives. Before and 
since the journey here recorded, we have tra- 
versed many lands' ^nd many seas. Xew Zealand, 
from 'the standpoint of political science, is the 
most interesting country in the "R^orld. Tonga 
and Fiji are melancholy monuments of British 
exploitation. But for human scenery, Samoa 
is the Garden of Eden, and for beauty, Hono- 
lulu is the capital of the earth. 



8 



Honolulu, April 20, 1905. 

HONOLULU is indescribable. From the 
harbor bar where great green waves 
of the Pacific Ocean beat themselves to 
snowy foam upon the jagged coral, back and 




.™J 



up to where a line of spent volcanoes notches 
the horizon with records of old earthquakes 
and pours cool rainbows down the rocky sides 

9 



where red-hot lava rivers used to nm, the ma a 
behind the pencil feels himself going into cap- 
tivity to the balm of the trade winds that never 
go to sleep, the fragrance of perpetual spring, 
the songs of birds, the witchery of a land 
whose people, instead of "Howdy do.'^ or "Good 
day/' or "How are you/' or staring silence, 
when they meet you say, with a bright smile. 
''Aloha'' (which is, being interpreted, "I love 
you"), until at length, hopeless of distinguish- 
ing between matter and spirit, he dares not 
undertake to separate what he actually sees 
from what he only feels. 

To (me ascending from the water's edge the 
place runs to rainbows, as London runs to 
fog-landscape as well as skyscape. Heliotrope, 
lantana, nasturtiums, poppies, coffee, guava, tea* 
roses, and calla lilies grow wild. Orange blos- 
soms, rhododendrons, passion flowers, wistaria, 
and begonias are everywhere. Trees the size 
of Xew England elms bear masses of bloom, 
their own or that of vines that cover them, 
too gorgeous for belief, even if description were 
possible — spikelike trumpet-creepers, bunches 
like locust blossoms, showers like the acacia, 
yellow as sunshine, red as sunset. Lilac trees 
are as big as English oaks. One may see ten 
thousand Amaryllis lilies in a single garden, 
and as many night-blooming cereus on a single 

10 



wall. The marshes shine with lotus flowers, 
and climbing roses thatch the cottages. The 
hedges are of yellow and red hibiscus, and 
every variety of palm is at its fascinating best. 
I have no doubt that from a balloon five miles 
above the gardens these would look like scram- 
bled rainbows. 




The same appearance runs through every- 
The aquarium and the fish markets 
11 



thing 



look like the prismatic spectrum on a strike. 
The fish are marked like tropical birds, and 
seem far too beautiful to be eaten. The popu- 
lation shows the same impossible color schemes. 
The natives, down to the bootblacks and com- 
monest servants, wear wreaths of exquisite 
flowers on hat, or neck, or breast, or shoulders. 
Best of all, the rainbow atmosphere perme- 
ates the people's minds. There is no lack of 
piliki (sorrow) in Honolulu, but the psycholog- 
ical temperature is simply quiet happiness. Dr. 
Deems' little poem written for Mary Woolley 
years ago comes to my mind again and again: 

"The world is wide 
In time and tide. 
And God is gTiide. 
Then do not hurry 

"That man is blest 
Who does his best 
And leaves the rest. 
Then do not worry." 

The scripture, too, is fulfilled climatically: 
"The sun shall not smite thee by day." In Hon- 
olulu nothing smites. Everything is tempered 
down to rainbows, and no case of sunstroke was 
ever known. 

Our hostess has a beautiful babv bov. It 



is too good to be tnie. ::: ! ::z. ^^ :_- ::. re 
kinds of heaTen from its i-; v-iv i«^.vr iuiiiii c^iiv- 
thing terrestrial I have ever seen. 

One dare not even seneralize on Honolnliu 





i 



^-*-3afiEL"' 



'-^^^^^^^-^ 



■"* * Litm4i of kfurem.' 

To call it ~T)eantifol** wonld be to libel it with 
faint praise. To caU it ^'more beantifal'*' wonld 
be to nse comparisons which are futile as well 
as odions. To call it "^ost beantifol"' wonld 

14 




c 



be ridiculous, since no writer has been every 
place. One can onlv say with the loo^-book of 
the steamship, it is "-Honolulu/^ 



II. 

Hilo, April 25, 1905. 

SOMEOXE has wondered if we could go 
from island to island in a rowboat, be- 
cause the islands seemed so near each 
other on the map. "WTien I told them it took 
twenty-four hours to sro from Honolulu to Hilo. 
and that the distance is 229 miles through 
rough seas, they quite seemed to doubt m^y 
statement. 

It takes five days to make this trip to Kil- 
auea, the largest active volcano in the world. 
It is in the island of Hawaii on the slope of 
Mauna Loa, which is 13,675 feet high, at an 
elevation of 4.000 feet. 

We left Honolulu Tuesday noon, April 18, 
and reached Hilo Wednesday about 4 p. m. 
That night we spent with Mr. and Mrs. Sever- 
ance in their beautiful home overlooking the 
sea. To describe this home is simply impossi- 
ble, for, with the ferns, and fruits, and foliage 
of these islands, gathered in and about it, the 
colors of the rainbow in all and everything, the 

16 




fan 



splash of the water on the rocks below, and 
the foil moon sending its light across the sea, 
and into the great lanai (veranda), it is some- 
thing we may experience, but not describe. 

The specimens of tropical plants we see in 
conservatories are very poor representatives of 
these growths in their natural homes. They re- 
quire the warmth and rain and generous sun- 
shine of the tropics for perfect development. 
There is a saving among the sailors, '"Tollow 
the Pacific shower and it leads you to Hilo.'' 
There is a heavy rainfall here^ which shows in 
the luxuriant vegetation of this island. When 
we were shown to our room, we were horrified 
to see a large spider, the size of a man's hand, 
moving across the floor. In terror we called 
our hostess, who calmly explained that they 
kept these pets in the house, and found them 
perfectly harmless, and very useful, as de- 
stroyers of moths, cockroaches and similar pests. 
We have heard since, that it is customary for 
good housewives always to keep spiders in their 
closets. 

We slept in this quiet haven — doors and win- 
dows wide open. The verandas are so deep 
and shaded, they render window-blinds un- 
necessary, so there is never a stuffy feeling 
about these houses, which makes indoor life a 
trial in the closed houses we are accustomed to. 

18 



Early in the morning, at the first break of 
day, we were called to look at Manna Kea 
(White Monntain), 13,805 feet high, wearing 
its rose-tinted cap. We stepped to our door, 
and there before ns was the beautiful mountain, 
covered with a tint the color of peach blossoms. 
It was surpassing beautiful, and is always so, 
for a short time in the early morning, fading 
gradually, until the snow-white cap appears, 
which it wears all day. 

At seven o^clock in the morning we left on 
the train, which carried us nineteen miles up 
the mountain. Then a stage ride of twelve 
miles more brought us to the "Volcano ITouse,'^ 
about noon. 

The terminal wall of the crater is only a few 
yards from the house, and until lunch time we 
explored the region about, finding many curious 
flowers and berries. The volcano had been 
active a week before our arrival, but now 
seemed onl}^ smouldering — columns of smoke 
appearing from time to time, but no fire. 

After lunch we mounted horses and de- 
scended 4G5 feet into the crater. We always 
think of a volcano as a cone, but this was a 
different thing. It is an abyss in the side of 

Mauna Loa, at a height of 4,000 feet. It is 
nine miles in circumference, and the lowest 

area covers six square miles. We rode single 

19 



file, following the guides carefully, for much 
of the way was full of danger. There were 
deep cracks from which hot. sulphur vapors 
escaped. Through some of these cracks you 
could see the fire, and at some we stopped to 




"After Jinich ice mounted horses. 



singe and set fire to paper. In some of the 
crcYices we picked a curious and beautiful film 
of lava, called "Tele's hair." It resembles 

20 



coarse spun glass of a greenish or yellowish 
color. It occurs during eruptions when drops 
of lava are thrown with great force in all direc- 
tions, and the wind spins them out in thin 
threads, which catch and adhere to projecting 
points. 

As we stood on the brink of the cone and 




'and descended into the crater." 



looked over into what seemed a veritable 
"bottomless pit/^ of bubbling, seething, groan- 
ing, rumbling lava, words cannot express what 
we thought. It is indescribable, a sight to be 
forever remembered, but not described. We 




The Edge of the Blow-hole 



were a very sober, tired party who rode back 
to the Volcano House ready for a hearty sup- 
per and early bed. 

22 



The next morning we were called at ilve 
o'clock, and at 6:30 were on the stage going 
down the mountain, through miles of jungle, 
tree ferns, vines, and great trees in blossom. 
I could not have imagined anything so beauti- 
ful as this endless variet}^ of trees, ferns and 
lianas. Palms, bread fruit trees, ohias, candle- 
nut trees of immense size. Kava, bananas, bam- 
boos, papa3'as, guavas, Ti trees, tree ferns, 
climbing ferns, intermingled and entangled and 
gently swaying in the breeze. 

For an hour we rode through heavy fog like 
rain. Bv eio'ht o'clock the fos; had orone. We 
were going down the mountain, and passed 
through coffee lands and the great "Oloa" sugar 
plantation. At ten o'clock we were in our boat 

to make the return trip to Honolulu. 

There are five landings, but no harbors, be- 
fore we reach Honolulu — two on Hawaii, and 
three on Maui. At all of these the passengers 
and freight are taken to and from the land in 
boats rowed by natives. It was always a won- 
der how they could make the trips, the waves 
were so rough and the boats so unsteady. The 
captain told us that at some of the ports it 
was often impossible to land. 

At one place we saw them bring four horses 
aboard, and long before we saw their heads, 
we heard them snort, and sneeze, as they swam 

23 



bv the side of the boat, being held by natives. 
When they were alongside of the ship a sort 
of life-preserver harness was thrown around 
their bodies. This was attached to a windlass 
in the ship, and the poor, half-drowned beasts 
pnlled aboard. This is the way all the cattle 
are carried from island to island. 




The Devil's Picture-frame. 

The whole trip was most inrerestino:, but the 
shores of Hawaii particularly so. This is the 
largest of these islands, and gives its name to 
the group. It is ninety miles long, and seventy- 

21 



four broad, and has three great mountains on 
it, the two 1 have named — Mauna Loa and 
Mauna Kea, and Haualalai, 8,275 feet high. 
This island was the home of Kamehameha I., 
who conquered all the other islands, and 
brought them under his own rule, making his 
capital at Honolulu. It was in this island that 
Captain Cook was killed in 1778, and a monu- 
ment has been erected by the English people 
to his memory. 

Hilo is much more beautiful from the harbor 
than Honolulu, because it lies close to shore, 
and its homes and gardens are plainly seen 
from the deck of the steamer. It is a city of 
wealth, being the center of an enormous sugar 
production, and very large freight ships trade 
between it and San Francisco, as well as English 
ports. In it, as in all the island cities, the 
white population is not to exceed one-fourth, 
but as in all the other cities, the white people 
who have been here a long time, are of splen- 
did quality both as regards business and 
character. 

In the harbor, near the shore, is "Cocoanut 
Island,^^ an ancient place of refuge, or sanctu- 
ary, for the natives. It remains exactly as it 
was, but the stone altar has been thrown down. 
In the city, there is a large sacrificial stone, 
where human victims were sacrificed under the 

25 




o 






O 



c 
^ 



old regime. One hears a great deal in dis- 
paragement of the worth of missions, and nn- 
doubtedly the opening up of a barbarous 
country is attended with many hardships to 
the natives, due to the white man^s vices, and 
the white man^s thrift, but the most superficial 
study of these islands is enough to show that 
the work of the missionaries has been of un- 
told advantage to the natives. 

On our way to Honolulu we saw the great 
tablelands and slopes, covered with sugar 
plantations, coffee trees, forest and pasture. 
The cliffs were bold, and high, washed by the 
ocean, and streaked with waterfalls. 

We passed Maui, with Haleakala 10,000 feet 
high— the largest extinct crater in the world 
—within its shores; also Molakai, where the 
leper colony is situated. The side of this 
island, one sees from the ship, is utterly bar- 
ren and deserted, and suggests the awful iso- 
lation of the people compelled to live there. 

Saturday morning at eleven o'clock we 
reached Honolulu, and sailed into the beautiful 
bay, with its opal-tinted waters, and felt as if 
we were home again, so niuch do we love this 
place. 



27 



III. 

At Sea, S. S. Yenmra, May 6. 1905. 

IF I were a rich pagan instead of a poor Chris- 
tian I would build a temple to the Sea. It 
is so strong and deep, so patient, merciful 
and gracious, to ship or soul laboring and 
heaw laden, that stanehly and faithfully casts 
loose upon its mighty promises; so shallow, 
variable, and cruel to the unpiloted and un- 
seaworthy. 

It is a great burden-bearer. It cannot be 
overloaded. It cannot be broken down. It 
never wears. It never gets out of order. It 
never needs repairs. It never shuts down. 

It is a great physician. It rests the eye by 
the overpowering vastness of its outlook. Groans 
of care, and hisses of eiuuit}" oif shore, are lost 
in the sound of many waters. All the long 
range senses surrender at discretion, and Eest- 
lessness, thus cut off from its supplies, ab- 
dicates its throne of nerves, and Peace runs up 
its flag as lord and conquerer. 

It is a great teacher. It lays its mighty law 
upon its pupil, and says: ''Stop sputtering and 
guessing; be still and know.'* 

It is a month to-daj- since we set sail. It 
seems like a year, so full the days have been of 
novel happenings, and I have rested indescriba- 
bly — like a tired old body rolling a gray head 

28 



from side to side of a great soft, sweet-smell- 
ing cradle, with mother's foot, unseen, upon 
the rocker of the universe. 

The "Yentnra" arrived southbound, at Hono- 
lulu eight hours late on May third. She had to 
discharge cargo, and take on six hundred tons 
of coal, in baskets, on the backs of coolies. 

We went aboard ship at ten p. m. The stars 
w^ere shining. There was not a cloud in sight. 
The dust was blowing in our eyes from the coal 
baskets, and it was raining. That is right. 
Good and ill are so mixed in Honolulu that it 
is hard to tell fair from foul. 

At six o'clock in the morning we cast off, 
and ploughed through the surf into the South 
Pacific. The ship was light and the long swell 
rocked her like a log. This operated as a very 
coarsening influence on the company at break- 
fast. All the fine passengers stuck to their 
cabins. Only a few brutes turned up at the 
cook's galley, and I was one of the number, 
being a sailor sans peur et sans reproche. 

To-day we cross the equator and the north- 
ern heavens will be lost to us for many months. 
We took a last look at the big dipper last 
night, as it dropped down in the north, with its 
two "pointers" showing where the Southern 
Cross will rise to-night. 



29 



Sunday, May 7. 

We have had an ideal Sunday. The weather 
is perieet. The crew had its weekly fire drill. 
The Southern Cross hangs oyer the ship's bow, 
and a new moon is rising over my right shoul- 
der as I write. 

Mrs. Delaport, a missionary to the Island of 
JSTauru, in the Marshal group, is one of our 
company, on her way home from a six months' 
visit to the hospital at Honolulu. She is an ob- 
ject lesson to the good woman and a rebuke to 
the frivolous and whining. She and her hus- 
band live on an island that is only twelve miles 
in circumference, under the equator, with a 
population of sixteen hundred naked blacks - 
not all naked now. for they have got nine hun- 
dred into clothes and attendance on religious 
services, and two hundred and four into church 
membership. Three times a yean a ship puts 
in with mail and supplies of canned goods. The 
island is too dry for gardening or stock raising. 
Cocoanuts and fish are the only products. Mrs. 
Delaport has to go to Sydney, and then back 
partly over the same course, ten days' sail, to 
get home. She is as cheery and hopeful as if 
she were a queen in ease and luxury. Two 
children are with her, and one other is with the 
father in the island. 

The rest of the ship's passengers are just 

30 



about the regulation crowd of travelers. An 
Australian ranger with his wife and son 
going home to visit the old countr}^; an as- 
tronomer from Lick Observatory; a Ph.D. from 
Germany, going to Somoa to settle; a botanist 
from Australia going to the same place with his 
new wife for study; Mrs. Kellar, wife off the 
magician, going to Tasmania for a visit to her 
people; several bright Yankee commercial 
travelers, and sundry incidentals. 

May 8. 

We wondered as we bore down from the 
equator into the eye of the "South-East trades" 
whether the harbor of Pago Pago (pronounced 
Pango Pango), would be so impressive to us as 
it was at our first visit four years ago. We have 
grown familiar with tropical scenes and peo- 
ples since that time, older too, sadder maybe, 
less impressionable, but the sea and sky have 
never seemed to me so beautiful. Last night the 
new moon, just turning its first quarter, rode 
down to its harbor in the west on a perfectlv 
even keel, like a great war canoe of burnished 
gold. This is a sight only to be seen at the 
equator, or near it. The sunsets are gorgeous. 
About sunset the whole ship^s company gathers 
on the westerly side of the deck, to watch the 
color riot break out at the horizon. 

The Pacific is a lonely ocean. We have seen 

31 



no sail since leaving HonolnlTi, nor mneh ani- 
mal life, for that matter. Some flying fish, an 
occasional shark, a school of porpoise, now and 
then a lonely whale, and always the ^Teai sea 
hirds wheelioff aimlesslv. 

The Pacific Ocean had a tantrnm yesterday. 
All day long it was like a carpet of gray silk. 
At six we watched a glorions sunset, but the 
sea was uneasy, foretelling, the captain said, 
a strong trade wind below. At seren we had 
a "capful of wind.'^ At eight the old thing was 
working like an ocean of metheglin, and the 
passengers who were not good sailoi^ began to 
look pensive. At iii:ie the whole equatorial 
orchestra was playizir i r a marine hospital. 
At eleven every pon was shut, and the head 
sea was tumbling over the ship's bow, and 
sounds of — say revelry, were issuing from sti- 
fling staterooms. 

T am writing this on the hurricane deck 
with the wind still roaring, and the beautiful, 
magical, unrealizable island of Tutuila looming 
nobly two or three miles away. In an hour we 
shall be settled in a grass hut in the heart of 
the Pacific, ten thousand miles from home. 



32 



IV. 

Pago Pago, May 11, 1905. 

WE were not to be disappointed. The 
same old enchantment enveloped ns 
as we passed the heads into this 
harbor, which is simply the crater of the vol- 
cano which some millions of years ago sponted 
and blazed, and which is now the island of 
Tutuila. 




The Heads, Pago Pago. 

The water and the sky are the same color. If 

33 



the sky is gray, so is the sea. If blue, the sea 
is blue. It was blue yesterday as we steamed 
slowly into port and made fast to TTncle Sam's 
new hiioj. ISTatiye villages succeed one another 
as the eye follows the curving beach. Back of 
the villages, with their enormous thatches of 



The Rainmaker, Pago Pago. 

grass, and palm branches, the mountain rises 

almost sheer, but with slope enough for trees 

and vines to get a foothold, and fertile to the 

summit. 

34 



At the water^s edge cocoamit trees loaded 
with fruit, wave their proud plumes^ and bear 
the whole 3'ear through. Back of these and be- 
neath them, bananas, bread fruit, papaia, alli- 
gator pears, pineapples, guavas, and everything 
else of which a seed has ever been blown 
hither, or carried by some migratory bird, 
grow in the same profusion. In the marshy 
places taro is cultivated, or rather is not culti- 
vated, and even on the mountain side an excel- 
lent variety of taro groAvs. 

The transcendent beauty of the Sa.moan Is- 
lands is mainly due to their fertility. Other 
mountains are as finely moulded, and other 
seas and skies as fair. But tlreso luonntaius are 
literal masses of verdure with never a barren 
space of so much as one poor inch, and in the 
trade winds that enter the narrow gateAvay of 
the bay, the hills do seem literally to ^'clap 
their hands" as the trees that clothe and 
glorify them smite their green palms together 
in the ecstasy of existence that fills the air. 

The Hawaiian Islands are not surpassed by 
anything hero, but they are toAvering broAvn 
and barren rocks and lava, treeless save for the 
loAver benches and in the valleys that have 
been Aveathered out by centuries of storm. 

Aiter the ship was at anchor we remained on 
board an hour or so to say good-bye to friends 

35 



who were going on to the souths and to renew 
oiir acquaintance with the lay of the land before 
going ashore. 

Change has .been busy since we came this 
way before. A large brown mansion for the gov- 
ernor^ an ample wharf and coal shed for the 
navy, an administration building, and a little 
custom house have been built by the govern- 
ment. Quite a number of pretty bungalows of 
officers and other white residents peep out of 
the palm groves that line the bay. The French 
Catholics have a pretty chapel, so has the Lon- 
don Missionary Society, so have the Mormons. 
The bush has been cleared in little frequent 
patches, and its place set with oranges and 
lemons, with here and there a rose garden. The 
iSTavy Department is building an observatory 
on the headland to the left of the entrance to 
the harbor. 

We went ashore at noon and took the whole 
hotel, about twenty rooms, in a wilderness of 
eocoanut palms, within fifty feet of the sea. 
That is, we got permission to lay our mats on 
the floor of any room that pleased our fancy, 
the hotel being abandoned for lack of patron- 
age. 

We found it easy to get mats, but the prob- 
lem was mosquito bars, without which there was 
no hope of sleep. We were too infatuated with 

37 



the novelty and beauty of the situation to reck 
much as to the necessities of life, but the Japa- 
nese restaurant took hold upon our carnal na- 
tures presently, and we ate the eat of the very 
hungry with some shipmates bound for Apia, 
and some young gentlemen of the government. 

On our Avay back to our hotel we met a divine 
providence in the way of Judge. Grurr, the ju- 
dicial head of American Samoa.. He introduced 
himself by saying he had just called on us to 
offer furniture for our rooms during our stay. 
Meanwhile he led us up the shore to his own 
beautiful cottage, which was in the hands of 
decorators, painting and polishing, he and his 
wife — a charming and noble native woman; — 
occupying a native grass house farther up the 
mountain. 

Soon a small regiment of natives were carry- 
ing a full supply of linen and mosquito netting, 
towels, and other household needs and com- 
forts, down the hill to the hotel, and when we 
got there at length we found ourselves set up 
in luxurious housekeeping. The linen smelled 
of sandalwood and was as white as snow. 

In the gloaming we took a long walk up the 
beach under an archway of palms whose wav- 
ing branches to our enchanted senses seemed 
playing wonderful music. The trail was 
thronged with natives, naked but for a strip of 

39 




'*'''*9"!'**fc„ 



Edwin R. Gurr, chief judge of Tutuila. 



tapa cloth^ or Yankee calico, about the loins, 
all smiling and saying to ns "^Talofa'' as they 
passed. 

A little boy hailed us to stop and eat some 
cocoamits, and as we turned into the pretty grass 
house he ran up a tree and threw down two 
half-groAvn nuts, husked them, opened them 
mth a few deft blows with the knife that 
serves every purpose from opening cocoanuts 
to mowing gTass and chopping wood, and 
handed them to us to drink the water. 

We visited with the woman, a handsome ma- 
hogany-colored young mother sitting on a mat 
on the gravel floor holding her baby, with a 
little sewing machine beside her on the ground 
and a huge kerosene lamp shining down from 
the center of the roof. 

I am not going to write about the natives in 
their homes until I know them better. Indeed 
I despair of giving an idea of what we are ex- 
periencing, but I shall do my best in subse- 
quent letters. 

It is sufficient to add that the governor and 
naval officers have shown the most gracious 
kindness, and the native chiefs are the perfec- 
tion of kindly, stately hospitality. Invitations 
have already come from several villages for us 
to visit them and be received at native feasts 
and dances. Every day is filled with experiences 

41 



that are sweet and natural as the sea or the 
wind, but at the same time positively startling 
in their strangeness in the midst of this world 
of greed and grief and graft. 

We slept like infants in the glorious sere- 
nade of waves and palms and the trade wind, 
and at sunrise I was awakened by a woman^s 
voice calling, "0 John, come and see! Isn^t it 
too beautiful ?^^ 



V. 

Pago Pago, May 15, 1905. 

UP to date the most remarkable experi- 
ence of this remarkable journey was 
the feast given by Mauga, high chief of 
the Island of Tutuila (pronounced ^'Maunga.^' 
In the Samoan language ^"^n^^ is always sounded 
like "ng^O- 

We had twice been entertained by Mauga 
and his beautiful wife, Faapia, once to spend 
the evening, and once at '"afternoon kava.'^ 

It will be better to open this strenuous 
social drama with some brief description of 
the actors. 

In a former letter I have told you how Judge 
Gurr, chief judge of Tutuila, took us to his 
home and presented us to his wife, a native 
Samoan. Panua is her name. Before her mar- 

J-2 




'Isn't it too heautifulf 



riage slie was taupou (queen) of the village of 
Apia in the island of Upolu. 

Some who read this will remember that in 
1899 and 1900 there was civil war in Samoa 
arising out of the claims of Maleotoa and 
Mataafa to the throne. The high chiefs were 




sirs. Gi'.rr and Mrs. Woolley. 

divided between the claimants^ and the little 
kingdom was shaken to pieces. The three great 
powers were equally unable to adjust the rival 
claims and ultimately partitioned the group of 

41 



islands between America and Germany, giving 
England certain satisfactory privileges else- 
where; so that on April 17, 1900, onr flag was 
raised in Tntiiila, and our sovereignty accepted 
gladly by the natives, who afterward voluntar- 
ily ceded us their islands. The leading chief of 
the Maleotoa party was Seumanutafa. Power- 
ful and famous in time of peace among his own 
people, he had achieved international fame by 
his humane and Christian, statesmanship in 
dealing with both friends and foes at the time 
when the American and German warships were 
wrecked by a hurricane in the harbor of Apia, 
March 16, 1889. Instead of killing or imprison- 
ing the sailors and the troops as they were es- 
caping from the wrecked vessels to the shore, 
and securing victory for his king and glory for 
his army, Seumanutafa turned the war into 
a rescuing party, saved 'friends and enemies 
alike, and gave them shelter, clothing, and sub- 
sistence until their governinent^ could supply 
them. 

In consideration of this noble conduct the 
American government presented to him a gold 
watch suitably inscribed, and a tine boat such 
as no chief in these parts had ever owned. He 
has since died; the boat has come back into the 
hands of the government, and is doing duty 
to-da}'' in this naval station; and Judge Gurr, 

45 



his son-in-law. carries the cratch given him by 
the old chief on his death-bed^ with affection- 
ate pride. 

Fanna is the daughter of Seumanntafa in 
spirit as well as by blood, and she with her tins- 
band shared in the exciting and perilous events 
out of which this wonderful island came under 
the stars and stripes. This letter is not about 
her, but I must add that she is a beautiful 
woman, bright, amiable, and educated far be- 
yond any of her fellow countrywomen, the 
happy T^dfe of a noble husband, inother of two 
handsome children, and was during his life a 
neighbor, daily visitor, and indeed the intimate 
friend of Eobert Louis Stevenson, of pathetic 
memory. 

Sergeant Cox, of Portage City, Wis., in 
charge of the native bod}'' off troops on this 
station — the Fitifiti Guard — and every inch an 
officer and gentleman, charged himself from 
the first with seeing that we should have a 
good time. With these, and Mr. Parks and 
Mr. Gaskell, secretaries respectively of the chief 
judge and the governor, we went to Mauga's 
house about eight o^clock in the evening, and 
found him, and Faapia absent, and the house 
dark, but for a swinging lamp turned very Ioav. 
We entered just the same, and found the 
taupou (queen of the village) sound asleep on 

46 



a pile of mats. Ajfter much shaking and merry 
shouting by Fanna, she was aroused, and Yenns- 
like sprung full-dressed (full-dressed for a 
Samoan) from the gravel lloor, good-natured 
and cordial, turned up the light and made us 
very welcome and very much at ease. 

Any Samoan house may be entered by any- 
body at any time, for rest, food, or a visit, with- 
out presuming or intruding. There is no sig- 
nal for admittance. One simply goes in. If 
the family be awake so much the better. If 
they be asleep, they wake up and take a hand, 
whatever is going on. 

The taupou immiediately proceeded to make 
kava. Servants sprung out of the dark out- 
side, as if by incantation. The kava bowl was 
placed opposite the center post of the house, 
on a mat, in front o^f the taupou. The dried 
kava root was brought, and the two native 
women broke it with stone pestles in a hollow 
stone. » The broken roots were placed in the 
bowl'^a large wooden dish hollowed out of a 
solid block of hard wood with cutting instru- 
ments of shell and stone — water was poured 
over them, and the brew proceeded. The taupou 
resigned her place to Fanua who, laughing and 
talking, stirred the mixture with her hands 
and strained it thorough!}^ through a bundle of 
fiber, like flax, called a fan. Then all who were 

47 



present clapped their hands to signify that the 
kava was ready, and also to notify any who 
were outside that we were about to drink. 
Fanna deftly tossed the liquid into a polished 
cocoanut shell and we were served in turn, with 
our hacks against the posts, facing the center. 

Kava is made from the dried root of a shrub 
of the same name — a member of the pepper 
famil}^ It is the beverage of ceremony in all 
the South Sea Islands. The bowls in which 
it is made and the cups in which it is served 
are the precious things of every household. 
The most punctilious etiquette appertains to 
the serving of it and many a war has convulsed 
the islands because somebody blundered when 
the cup was going round. It looks like soap- 
suds after a hard day^s washing, but I should 
think, tastes better. It has a slight ginseng 
taste, with a peppery hereafter, and, to my own 
notion, is by no means bad. I am drinking it 
in full cups with some pleasure, and the cor- 
dial approval of the natives. It is, of course, 
absolutely free from fermentation, being made 
fresh for every drinking, and it is considered 
by the white residents perfectly harmless, if not 
beneficial, in this climate. 

After the kava, while the taupou was danc- 
ing for us, IVCauga and Faapia came in and 
greeted us most cordially. The chief is a giant, 

48 



stately and intelligent, wearing only his ma- 
hogany-colored skin, a breech-cloth abont his 
loins, and tennis shoes. 

He sat on his mat and made his welcome 
in a speech praising America and giving thanks 
to God that the Samoans were to be taught by 
us the ways of civilization. This was given lis 




''The chief is a giant." 

by an interpreter who in turn interpreted our 
thanks. Then we had more dancing; and it 
was late when we sought our lodgings, charmed 
with the Samoans, and quite in love with some 
of them. 

49 



"The next aiternoon we called to pay our re- 
spects. Our favorable impressions of the night 
before were confirmed and strengthened. De- 
licious oranges peeled and with the ends cut 
off were served^ and sucked with grateful 
unction^, followed by vaisami served hot in 
cocoanut shells fresh opened for the purpose, 
and this followed by green cocoanuts, opened 
for drinking the milk. 

Cocoanut milk is always served in the nut;, 
for drinkino- water. Yaisami. is made of the 
milk of green cocoanutS;, heated with hot 
stones in a calabash, and thickened with fresh 
arrow-root. 

After the refreshments, a ring of tortoise 
shell, inlaid with silver, was put on ]\Irs. Wool- 
ley^s hand and a table cover of tapa cloth pre- 
sented to me. 

Faapia is of royal blood, the daughter of a 
real chief, verv handsome and of most eno-ao;- 
ing mind and manners. 

It is worth a trip around tlie world to know 
the best of these Samoan women, and we are 
conscious that some of them have already 
ceased to be mere curious acquaintances, and 
have become fast friends. The next day was 
the feast, and now my trouble begins. 

Look at the accompanying map; and by the 
way, this map is worth preserving. It was 

50 



given me by Judge Gurr, and has never been 
printed until now. Pago Pago is situated 
about the center of the island at the head of 
the Pago Pago bay. an oblong body of deep 
water set in coral in the heart of the mount- 
ains. This ba}^ is the limit of beauty in scenery, 
so far as I know scenery. From the edges 
of it the mountain sides run up for say, a 
thousand feet at an angle of forty-five degrees, 
and from that, fifteen to eighteen hundred feet 
at an angle of anything from eighty degrees to 
sheer. 

The thousand feet next the water is a wilder- 
ness of cocoanut palms towering over a nether 
wilderness of bread-fruit, orange, lime, papaia, 
rubber, cocoa, nutmeg, and in general all the 
vegetation known to the tropics. 

Observe the numerous villages along the 
shore. These villages consist of from six to 
fifty grass-houses each. Each village has its 
chief and its taupou. The chief is an absolute 
monarch locally, and the taupou is his official 
entertainer— that is to say. in the main, his 
dancer. The grass-houses are all alike in form 
and plan, but differ as to size and workmanship 
and furnishings. 

A Samoan home is only an enormous roof 
of woven sugar-cane leaves, supported by three 
center posts, set abreast, and a row of shorter 




2Q 



posts at the eaves. Between these outer posts 
screens made of woven pahn leaves, fastened 
with cords of cocoannt fiber somewhat like 
Venetian blinds, are provided for lowering on 
the rainy side, but practically they are always 
up, leaving the roof standing like its owner — 
on its bare legs. 

There are no rooms. The floor is bits of 
broken coral. Here and there on the floor, or 
on a kind of a loft easily reached, are piles 
or rolls of mats. These mats serve for chair^ 
and beds and clothes and money. The}' vary 
from coarse ones made of cocoanut leaves, 
which sell for a shilling each, up to fine ones of 
pandanus fiber as fine as the finest weave to be 
seen in the finest millinery, which are unpur- 
chasable, being used only as gifts and marriage 
portions, bridal dresses, and burial robes. The 
greatest gift possible in Samoa is a ^'fine mat,'" 
and the wealth of a family is measured not at 
all by lands or houses, but by fine mats. In the 
best houses the gravel floor is covered over with 
loose mats and everything is scrupulously clean. 
The natives themselves leave nothing to be de- 
sired as to odors, owing to their anointing 
themselves with cocoanut oil, but they are 
very cleanly. There are three hundred and 
sixty-five wash-days in the year. 

The framework of the houses is of bread- 

54 



fniit timber made into arches by beautiful 
dovetailing and tied with small cords of plat- 
ted cocoannt fiber. ISTo nails are nsed^ nor 
metal of any kind. The high vaulted space is 
open mostly, but one often sees a precious 
family boat slung up there for safe keeping, 
and bales of mats and tapa cloth, and dozens 
of bottles of cocoa oil used by the taupou. As 
I have said, every house is absolutely open day 
and night to anybody for lodging, rest, or food, 
aiid the departing guest is perfectly welcome 
to take away such food as he requires or wishes. 

In humble homes cooking is done just out- 
side, or just inside, the house on an open fire 
of fagots, but in the homes of chiefs or "talk- 
ing men'' it is done in an oven, or hole in the 
ground, at some distance awa}^, the heat being 
applied by means of hot stones. 

The cooking of course is ver)'' simple — taro, 
baked or boiled, fish, fowl or pig roasted, and 
all served without salt or pepper, or crockery 
or nappery — save, for company, a basin and 
towel which go from guest to guest when the 
meal endsl— a large finger bowl. 
. Mauga^s house is the finest on the island. It 
is almost exactly circular, and about forty-six 
feet in diameter, twenty-six feet high in the 
center, and six feet at the eaves. The timber 
in the arched roof, as before stated, is from 

55 



the bread-fruit tree, well seasoned, and com- 
pletely wrapped with platted cords of cocoannt 
fiber. To call it beautiful is well within con- 
servative description. 

Imagine, then, in such surroundings, on a 
perfect tropical afternoon, some fifty guests 
assembled for the feast. Up the bay from the 
naval station at Fagatoga comes the governor 
of the island — Commander C. B. T. Moore, of 
the United States navy — in his boat rowed by 
twelve native guards, naked but for their blue 
breech-cloths and crimson turbans. Chiefs 
and their talking-men from neighboring vil- 
lages, bare as to feet and legs and trunk, with 
a white cloth about their loins, move slowly 
along the shore. The boat of the native band 
of the Fitifiti Guard (eighty-five young chiefs 
selected for their physical perfection, glorious 
to see, and lo3^al and intelligent) really quite 
equal to the ordinary military band, comes 
fairly leaping on its mighty oars. The officers 
and secretaries of the station and their wives, 
all in white, sauntering along under the palms 
— nobody hurries in Tutuila — Mrs. Woolley in 
a jinriksha — sent her by the governor's wife 
because she had chafed her foot tramping; — 
drawn by a husky native, has the only equipage 
on the shore. 

Mauga and Faapia, rising from their mats, 

56 




Governor C. B. T. Moore. 



greet all as the guests enter^ with the saluta- 
tion ^^Talofa^^ (Good day);, shake hands^ and sit 
down cross-legged on mats at the outer edge 
of the house facing the center. When she of 
the jinriksha arrives Mauga advances to meet 
her and conducts her to a raised seat — to spare 
her possible pain from sitting on her feet on 
the ground. The governor, a stout man, and 
his party are similarly favored when they ar- 
rive. The rest of us thoughtfully fold our legs 
and sink on mats. The interpreter seats himr 
self in front of the host and then the "talking- 
man^^ (every chief has a "talking-man," or as 
we should say perhaps, a general attorney) 
opens the ceremonies in a long speech descrip- 
tive of the occasion, the guests, and the general 
condition of the country. He quotes scripture 
freely, giving chapter and verse, and closes 
with a peroration of hearty compliment to the 
United States o'overnment and all the o-uests. 

Then Mauga speaks more briefly, and more 
especially to the guests of honor, in a vein of 
deep religious feeling, and expressing a strong 
desire to be rid of the "heathen customs" of 
Samoa, and to see the people take on American 
ways and American civilizaton. 

The governor responds for our whole party, 
and then the feast is fully under way. The 
kava bowl is brought and the taupou and her 

58 



assistants brew the inevitable drink that neither 
inebriates nor cheers. 

The preparation of the kava occupies some 
twenty minntes which are for the most part 
gravely silent. The roots are brought by the 
guests — each a little^ not so much with the 
idea of providing the suppl3^ as with the mere 
compliment of presenting a bit of the com- 
modity. 

When the kava is read}^, the taupou claps her 
hands and the whole company joins. Then the 
tulafalC;, or toast-master^, calls in a loud chant- 
ing tone, in Samoan oiz course, ^^The circle of 
chiefs is complete; I am about to serve out the 

kava. Bring the cup to .'' Faapia springs 

lightly to her feet, whirls three times before 
the chief, takes the ipu (cup), holds it high 
above her head until she stands immediately in 
front of the person named to be first served, 
then swings it in a graceful curve almost to the 
floor, and up to the level of his face without a 
word, but with a most gracious smile. Pie takes 
it, raises it to the chief and says '^^manuia^^ 
(here^s health) and everybody answers "soifua.^^ 
(may you live). 

So the cup goes round until all have been 
served. Samoan ladies only touch the cup to 
their lips but do not drink, as a rule. The 



59 




ir^ 



commoner people are not allowed to drink kava 
at all. It is a chiefs .beverage. 

While we have been drinking kava there has 
been a procession of native men with wreaths 
of red berries and green leaves about their 
heads going to and fro, carrying, in pretty 
green kits of cocoannt leaves, the substantial 
viands, and laying the table in an adjoining 
grass-honse as large as the chief^s dwelling, 
but not so fine. The table is a long, new-made 
mat of huge banana leaves, laid on cocoannt 
palm branches, placed end to end in pairs upon 
the ground. On this beantifnl table are laid 
great yams, bulbs of taro, chickens, ducks, 
pigeons and other fowl stuffed with 3^oung taro 
leaves, and roasted whole pigs, fish, shell fish 
and various forms of dishes made of taro, arrow- 
root, eocoanuts and so forth. For everyone 
there is a green cocoanut broken open at the 
top with the pure, cool, delicious cocoanut milk 
ready for drinking. 

When all is ready Mauga so announces, and 
we go to table — white women with native men, 
white men with native women. The taupou 
named Siutu was given me for a partner. She 
was dressed gorgeously in beads, and a single 
piece oif tapa cloth about her middle. She took 
me by the hand and led me to the banquet. 
The sharp stones hurt my feet through the 

61 



soles of my shoes, but she set down her big 
brown, clean, bare feet as firmly on the chip- 
ped and broken coral as if it were the nap upon 
a Turkish carpet. 

In absolnte quiet a blessing was asked upon 




Mauga's feast. 

the food, and the great nation, and Samoa, 
and then we fell to. My queen seized a roast 
chicken, tore it into fine pieces;— the wings car- 

&2 



rying all the white breast with them, the legs 
and second joints the remainder. She handed 
me a ^ving which I tore cheer'ailly, while she 
picked here and there for dainties to ply me 
with. She would scoop iip a handfnl of shrimps, 
shnck them swiftly, and feed them to me, laugh- 
ing at my slow miovements, but on the whole 
pleased with me, for I went right through the 
menu, 

Ever3'^thing to be eaten was wrapped in taro 
leaves, and everything suggested cleanness. The 
dessert was viasami, a pudding made O'f young 
cocoanuts and arrow-root, served in a half of 
a eocoanut shell and eaten with an orange 
leaf with its stem bitten oft', and held by 
the outer edge curled up between the thumb 
and two fingers. Finally a tin wash basin of 
water was passed around, with a towel, for a 
finger-bowl, and the meal was over. 

While the feast was going on, the native 
guests from time to time found some article of 
food that pleased them, and calling their own 
helpers, would pass it back to them to be taken 
home, in eocoanut kits or baskets, with which 
they were all provided for the purpose. 

As we retired from the table, the villagers 
closed in, and in the twinkling of an eye the 
remnants vanished. 

Then came the siva (dance). Twelve young 

63 



chiefs sat in a double row upon the mats and 
"danced/^ with arms and heads and legs and 
swaying bodies shining with cocoanut oil, and 
garlanded with vines and flowers, to a wierd, 
sonorous chant. Their rhythm was perfect and 
their movements bewildering in complexity, sug- 
gesting every action of savage craft — rowing, 
leaping, fishing, fighting, courting, hunting, and 
the like. 

Then the taupou and her girls came on, and 
danced their savage but fascinating dances with 
movements similar to those of the men, only 
exhibited on foot, and in terms of grace and 
beauty rather than in terms of strength and 
skill. 

Many of the girls of high families are beau- 
tiful and all of them seem ingenuous, modest, 
and sweet-tempered. The well-bred young 
men are magnificent in their strength. At six 
o^clock we took our ways home. We had been 
four hours at the feast. 

Since Mauga's feast, we have been at many 
feasts, equally splendid and curious, notably 
one at Tufele^s, a high chief of the island of 
Manua, a district judge and the leader of the 
Fitifiti Guard 

Yesterday we dined with ISTaoteote, chief of 
Vatia, on the north coast, rowing ten miles up 
the coast and back. Each boat had twelve row- 

64 



ers, and was canopied with vines and palms and 
flowers. The Fitifiti Guards fairly carried the 
ladies of the party over the mountain and quite 
carried us all through the serf to the boats^ 
embarking and going ashore. It rained tor- 
rents^ and the sea was rough, but if there is 
anything worth while in the world for the mere 
joy of living, a row in a twelve-oared native 
boat in a rough sea, with another just like it 
alongside, and two crews of brown-backed 
giants, equally m-.atched, pulling ^dth Olympian 
spirit and incredible endurance, singing their 
thundering boat songs that outroar the ocean 
waves, is close to the top of the honor list, or 
I am no judge. 

It appears impossible for these men to work 
without singing. This island runs by song- 
power. Every crew, no matter how severe the 
toil, sings constantly, and in the evening and 
early morning the shores of Pago Pago bay are 
vibrant with a running melody of native songs 
gathered and orchestrated by the trade wind 
in the palms, and the swish of the South Sea 
on the shore. 

I have been here a week and have got used 
to my o"\vn enthusiasm so that there is no 
danger of its fooling me, and I say it is a re- 
markable race that has ceded its homes and 
committed its destiny to our government. 

65 



Only think of it, these people are as primi- 
tive as Adam and Eve. As I sat yesterday and 
heard Chief I^aoteote exhort his people to get 
up out" of heathen ways and follow the light of 
America, I felt as if I were back in the time 
oi Abraham hearing the old friend of God 
tackle the darkness of his day and propose to 
his people to get np and get ont. 

Here is a race jnst catching the light of the 
world. I am so thankful to have seen it in the 
raw material. It gives one a shock to realize, 
as one does here in this little island where the 
transition from primitive to modern is so sud- 
den and so visible, that the progress means an 
awful loss of the simple joy of the forest. The 
history of Samoa is the story of say five hun- 
dred thousand years of absolute liberty from 
care. The tribal wars have really been athletic 
sports. The people grow like the palm trees 
and drink the sun and rain, and bear, mature, 
and pass on painlessly. There is not an un- 
happy home in Somoa, nor a jealous wiie, nor 
a stingy husband, nor a pauper, nor a debtor, 
nor a money lender. Because the climate is so 
perfect and the whole environment so sooth- 
ing? Yes, but for another reason — that the 
moral ideas are so crude and low. 

Christianity comes like a sting of death in 
an enlightened moral consciousness, and these 



people, heretofore so happy and careless and 
innocent, begin to be dissatisfied with their 
conntry^s customs, their homes and themselves ; 
begin to wish their daughters were other than 
what they are, and that their sons were differ- 
ent. It is inspiring to look npon, but it is most 
pathetic. Eden is a picnic. Civilization is 
going home in the rain. 



Y. 

Pago Pago,. May 20, 1905. 

IN this letter I want to sketch briefl3^ but as 
comprehensively as possible, the daily 
ronnd of common life in Tiitiiila. We have 
been here long enongh, and have visited enough 
among the natives to know a good deal, super- 
ficially, about the day's doings in the main 
thoroughfares of existence. 

I have described a Samoan house as well as 
I could, in another letter. It is like a hollow 
hayrick set on stilts six feet high. It is open 
on all sides, but screens of small m.ats made of 
braided cocoanut leaflets are provided for lower- 
ing on the rainy side, or sunny side, in case of 
need. The people being almost nude — the chil- 
dren quite so, as a rule — are sensitive to cold 
winds and rain; hence the screens. 

The floors are broken coral, covered with mats. 

07 



There are no partitions^ no closets, no cup- 
board, table, chairs — nothing that we call fur- 
niture but a lamp. Whatever provisions are on 
hand are kept in a kit-basket on a kind of 
bracket or crosspiece on the center pole. There 
are in fact little or no provisions in advance. 
At every meal everything is eaten, or taken 
avray by the guests, who in that case would have 
a litth; something ahead for the next meal. The 
rule is that every day and every meal looks out 
for itself, except Sunday, which is rigidly kept 
as a day of rest; no cooking, no visiting, no 
traveling, no fishing, no boating is done on Sun- 
day. Food for the day is prepared on Saturday. 

The only dishes are the half shells of cocoa- 
nuts, and they are never used twice. There 
are no dish-rags in Samoa. Water is rarely used 
for drinking — only the juice or milk of the 
green cocoanut. But for making kava, water 
is carried in empty cocoanut shells tied together 
in pairs with platted cords of sinnet, made from 
the husk of the cocoanuts by the old men. who 
spend their waning years in making it and 
winding it into balls for family use. The boys 
returning from the spring will have half a 
dozen pairs of these water bottles s"\vung over 
the end of a stick carried on the shoulder. 

The bread of Samoa is taro, or breadfruit, 
baked or boiled or prepared in little cakes; the 

68 



meat is fish, fowl, or pig. Pig is the great 
delicacy. 

Wiashing is done — and very well done — in 
streams or waterholes, or in the sea when fresh 
water is not at hand, by using plenty of soap, 
and beating the clothes on a smooth rock with 
a mallet or a short club of ironwood. Cleanli- 
ness is a distinguishing characteristic of the 
Samoans. The day begins and ends with a bath, 
and no articles of clothing are worn two days 
in succession without having been washed. 
Mingling with the natives, one's olfactories are 
more or less offended by the smell of cocoanut 
oil with which they smear the exposed parts of 
the body, but the odor of sweat or dirt is never 
encountered. 

Every Friday the heads of those not initiated 
into the uses of the fine comb are covered with 
a plaster of lime. This white-lime dressing for 
the hair is so pleasing to some of the natives 
that they keep it up as a matter of style, \Wth- 
out reference to its original purpose. 

So far as I can discern there is no sense of 
disgrace in Samoa. The prisoners on the 
"chain gang'' — chainless, however — are as 
cheerful and sociable as anybody, and the sta- 
tion prison fairly roars with music of native 
songs the whole evening through. 

The houses are as tidy as the inhabitants. 

GO 



Every morning tlie mats are pnt out in the sun 
for cleansing, and the graveled floor thoroughly 
s^vept with a broom of cocoannt twigs which 
not only turns the pretty coral fragments hut 
brnshes from among them any bits of grass or 
crnmbs or anything nntidy. When the mats 
have been aired and snnned they are put back 
in their places, but always at right angles to the 
way they lie at night. The whitest suit of 
clothes is in no danger of being soiled in a 
Samoan house unless one leans against the 
outer posts where some native in full dress of 
eoeoanut oil has recently been leaning. 

Meals are eaten from small individual mats 
of eoeoanut leaflets closely woven. These mats 
are say 12 x 24 inches. They are kept clean by 
having fresh banana leaves over them, when in 
use;, and they are forthwith thrown away upon 
becomino' soiled. 

o 

There are no beds in Samoa. The people 
sleep on mats upon the gravel floor. The pil- 
low is a joint of bamboo with no covering. The 
coverlet;, if any is used, is a piece of tapa cloth, 
made of the inner bark ofthe tutuga tree beaten 
into sheets and ground with the natural paste of 
the arrowroot, and more beating. Sometimes 
a chief sleeps on a pile of mats and some have 
mosquito nets; everybody ought to, for while 
there is no great number of mosquitoes they are 

70 



of the dangerous kind that carry yellow fever 
and elephantiasis. -f^ 

Elephantiasis is the prevailing disease. It is 
a very common sight to see a native with an 
arm or a leg grown to enormous proportions, 
and almost unbearable weight. There appears 
to be no cure for it but surgery. 

On the floor of the house, which is in shape 
an ellipse, say 40 x 50 feet, those who would 
sleep lay themselves side by side, without re- 
gard to age or sex, or relationship, lying down 
or rising at will. The white guest is provided 
with one of the older women to fan him all 
night if he will permit it, or to rub his feet or 
massage his body anywise which his comfort 
may suggest. He need have no concern about 
his money or his watch or jewelry. There are 
no thieves in Samoa. As I write this I am sit- 
ting in my room at the governor's mansion and 
my mose valuable baggage is in an empty hotel 
a mile away, with every door and window open, 
and I have not seen the place for four days. 

Every chief, in addition to his own home, has 
near it, and usually in front of it, a "guest 
house'' presided over by the taupou, or village 
queen. She is elected by the people and is 
their official social representative. She is sedul- 
ously guarded as a virgin, is implicitly obeyed 
as to all social matters and held in jealous 

72 



pride by her people. To sound her praises and 
to procure for her a distinguished marriage is 
the chief ambition. 

It may well be imagined that in general the 
paternal line of ancestry is elusive, but in a 
land of everlasting summer and unfailing food 
supply, the care of children sits but lightly. 
All are cared for. The mothers have the warm- 
est affection for them in their infanc}', and 
later some one is pretty sure to take a fancy to 
them and adopt them with the mother^s prompt 
and full consent, and the father^s too, if he be 
known. Thus everybody has somebody else^s 
child, but one selected after full inspection, and 
therefore fondly nurtured, not for duty, but for 
love. If one meets in any family a child or a 
lot of children which the man or wife introduces 
as his or hers, there s not even a suspicon raised 
that they, or any of them, are the fruit of the 
"'^father^s^^ and "mother's^^ marriage. If one 
introduces the son of his own mother and 
father, and cares to explain fully the relation, 
he says, "This is my true brother.'^ 

Until the American occupation marriages 
were as temporary as parentage; the relation 
of husband and wife continued simply during 
the mutual pleasure of the parties, but very 
great changes have taken place as to that dur- 
ing the last four years. The relation is rigidly 

73 



yarded by the lavr, and divorce allowed practi- 
cally on the basis laid down by the Catholic 
clnirch. The new arrangement seems abont as 
satisfactory as the old^ to the persons con- 
cerned. I shall have more to say on this sub- 
ject in another article, bnt it is safe to say now, 
that radical improvement is taking place in re- 
gard to sexual relations in Samoa. 

The picturesque costumes of the natives are 
rapidly giving way to American fashions, ex- 
pressed in brief "Mother Hubbards^"'' for the 
women, and shirts for the men. The eowns are 
usually of hideous patterns of calico, and the 
shirts are worn outside, the whole garment 
flaunting brazenly. Worst of all. the women 
who belong to the church are required by the 
London Mission Society, the strongest body in 
the islands, to wear hats on Sunday. The order 
is of course obeyed with alacrit}^ — and fearful 
transformations of appearance. 

The men are as fond of dress as the women 
and one may see now and again a strapping 
young man dressed in a white shirt hanging 
straight-away, and Boston garters without socks 
or shoes. 

Boys coming to maturity are tattooed from 
the waiste to the knee in black pigment in con- 
ventional and really artistic design. The opera- 
tion is attended with great suffering covering a 

74 



space of several weeks. The youth is laid full 
length upon a mat, and the artist pricks in the 
color with a rake-like instrument tapped with 
a small mallet, while his girl friend sits upon 
him wiping away the blood and sweat, and sing- 
ing songs. This tattooing is the toga virilis of 
a Samoan, proclaiming him a man, and entitling 
him to a place in the councils of his family. / 
There is no money in Samoa. Evil there is, 
but not from that root. The native currency is 
^^fine mats'^ which are legal tender at five dol- 
lars each. A pig costs not thirty dollars, but 
six fine mats, and so forth. These fine mats 
constitute the dowry of a bride. A Tutuila 
chief has recently brought his bride to Fagatoga 
where we are now living, from the Island of 
Upola, with a marriage portion of 280 fine 
mats, and two bales of tapa cloth. That of 
course, is riches, for it must not be understood 
for a moment that these mats can be bought 
for five dollars each. Many of them are heir- 
looms which have been worked upon for gener- 
ations, and are unpurchasable at any price. In 
cases where the owners are willing, or compelled 
to sell them, the price runs from five dollars for 
the poorest qu.ality up to a hundred dollars for 
the best. The m.ats are as fine and as durable 
as damask, and represent incalculable hours of 
expert labor. 



The staple of Samoan agriculture is copra — - 
the meat of the full-ripe cocoanut dried in the 
sun. The natives are very expert in opening 
the shell and removing the meat. The full-ripe 
nut has no milk in it. It is treated by the 
copra cutter as a head. The nut is held with 
the face toward one side, the two eyes upward. 
In that position it is struck with a stone on 
the back of a large knife exactly on the "crown 
of the head/^ when it falls apart in two smooth 
halves. Then the copra is quickly and easily 
removed. 

The origin of the cocoanut is kept in a clear 
and rather pretty tradition. The story goes 
that a chief courted a maid and was rejected. 
He asked in view of the facts to be granted a 
slight request — that on his death he might be 
buried in her village near her house. This was 
granted, and he explained that his body would 
come out of the earth in the form of a tree 
that would supply her and hers with a nut 
which would be food and drink forever, and 
that whenever she sucked the sweet contents 
from the mouth of the nut he would feel her 
lips press his own. 

The amusements of the children are such as 
all children know — games of marbles, slings, 
darts, boats, etc. Cricket is played by men and 
women alike, but dancing is the sport par ex- 

76 



cellence. The siva or native dance is done sit- 
ting, for the most part, and consists of simply 
a remarkable series of arm and body move- 
ments in imitation of the various industries 
and pursuits of native life, or of things that the 
dancers have seen done by soldiers, marines, or 
tourists. At a church dedication the other day 
they sung that American classic, "Ta-ra-ra- 
boom-de-aye," with great gusto accompanied 
by an imitation of a military drill that they had 
seen in its companj^ 

The dead are tenderly buried close to the 
houses where they lived. The graves are bor- 
dered with stones, and covered with broken 
coral, and are treated as sacred spots not to be 
trodden on or disturbed in any wa}^ 

There are no servants in Samoa. One whom 
at home we should call a "servant" is here a 
"son" or "daughter," or simply au^auna, — one 
who does an errand. Each member of the 
family works and does his share, or her share, 
of the household enonomy. The women do the 
fishing, in the main. The men do the cooking. 
The women make the thatch. The men put it 
in place. 

Cooking is done by villages, in a hole in the 
ground where stones are heated on a bonfire. 
Then the food is piled on the stones and well 
covered with green banana leaves to keep it 



elean^ covered with earthy and left for many 
hours. The various articles to be cooked are 
platted up in cases or pockets of cocoanut 
leaves or ti leaves. A vessel very like a demi- 
john is made by covering a bottle with a net- 
work or husk of rattaan. Then the food is al- 
ways clean and even inviting to Ameirican eyes^ 
if one be hungry enough. 

Women in all respects are on an equallity 
with men in Samoa. The}^ have an equal voice 
in the family councils, and an equal vote in vil- 
lage affairs. 

The tools in Samoa are stone adzes and ham- 
mers, cutting instruments of shells and a large 
knife. The weapons are clubs of hardwood, 
spears of tough wood pointed with sharks^ teeth, 
and heading-knives, but the most dangerous 
weapon is a match. Only a few weeks ago the 
houses of the head men in a village near '-vhere 
I sit writing this letter were fired and burned 
to the ground by the men of another village 
angry because one of their number bad bev3n re- 
jected as a suitor by one of Ihe village girls. 

They are all Christians in Samoa, and rela- 
tively to Samoan ideals and environments, quite 
equal in quality to the American article. They 
are kind, easy to be entreated, hispitable to 
strangers, in honor preferring one another. 
Long before any missionary touched these 

78 



shores the Samoan had the custom of grace 
before eating. 

The only musical instruments in Samoa are 
the human voice, and the drum — a boat turned 
bottom side up on a hollow log of hardwood. 
There is also a bamboo flute, but it is a mere 
toy not worth mentioning. But song is the Sar 
moan music, and the Samoan history as well. 
The islands have no records but the songs. Yet 
there is not the slightest notion of musical 
values as civilization estimates them. 

There is no trace of the pictorial art in 
Samoa. The people are as careless as birds, as 
perfect in their little knowledge, as feeble in 
desire for change. 



YII. 

Pago Pago, May 24, 1905. 

SOLEAI, chief of ISTuuuli, invited us to spend 
two days in his village on the occasion of 
dedicating the new church just erected by 
the natives under the auspices of the London 
Missionary society. The invitation came 
through the governor of the island who was to 
make the dedication speech, to be followed 
with a brief address by myself. 

On Wednesday morning. May 24, we set out 
■ — the governor, his wife, and her mother, Mrs. 

79 



Johns, of Decatur, 111., Mrs. Gurr, the "Fanua^' 

of my former letter, and ourselves. Stont na- 
tive soldiers were in attendance to carry our 
baggage and assist the ladies over the steep 
places on the trail. Others of the station, 
officers and their wives, were to follow later in 
the day. 

It had been planned that we should go part 
way by boat, but the sea was rough and the 
fears of a few condemned the legs of all and 
we walked. 

The distance is not over four or five miles, 
and the trail follows one of the most pictures- 
que coasts in existence, but the way is over 
broken stems of coral and up rugged hills, slip- 
pery from frequent rains, so that a rate of 
about two miles an hour is very good speed 
indeed. 

All Samoan trails, on the shore or in the in- 
terior, are marked by lines of cocoanut trees. 
'WHien a trail is broken out the workmen throw 
cocoanuts, more or less at random, in the bush 
as they proceed. These spring up to define 
the road and provide a never-failing food and 
drink supply for travelers ever after. 

There is a certain penalty involved in this 
arrangement, however, for there is need for 
the traveler to watch out lest a ripe cocoanut 
fall on him as he passes or some loosening palm 

80 




'< 






leaf fan him away to everlasting bliss by drop- 
ping on his head when he is out for a. day's 
pleasure. 

The Tillages are invariably set in cocoannt 
groves, and long before its houses come into 
view a village announces itself and its un- 
bounded hospitality by the waving tops of its 
palms towering as mnch as a hundred feet or 
more against the skj or the darker green of 
the mountain side. 

This is the height of the copra season, and 
all the villages are busy opening the fallen 
cocoanuts and cutting out the meat, which 
spread on mats in the sun is dried for three 
days and sold at about sixty dollars a ton under 
the name of "copra/^ It is used for making 
soap and candy and sundry cooking products. 
All the copra produced here is shipped in bulk 
to the states. Copra is to Samoa what cotton 
is to Alabama, corn to Illinois, or wheat to 
Minnesota. The crop never fails and the de- 
mand is alwa3^s good. 

Samoans never eat ripe cocoanuts. The -half- 
ripe ones furnish the universal drink and an 
important part of the food supph^ 

We readier jSTuuuli at noon and spent the 
rest of the day in rest and visiting. Kava, of 
course, was served immediately on our arrival 
and a bounteous supper in the evening. After 

CO 



kava we took our liincli in hampers and crossed 
an arm of the sea to visit the "iron-bonnd 
coast/^ so called from the black volcanic cliffs 
that form the shore, where no hoat can land, 
and where ten thousand miles of Pacific ocean 
hnrl themselves, centnr}^ on centnry nnhin- 
dered, and almost unseen. 

The ocean siege is winning, too. Long tun- 
nels have been driven far beneath the towering 
fortresses and have forced great blow-holes up- 
ward to the surface far inland so that one looks 
across a field of spouting ge^^sers which are of 
course not ge3^sers, but only the escapements of 
the terrific hydraulics by which the sea is forc- 
ing the black cliffs to their fall. Ages it works 
boring a shaft into the face of the palisades, 
then on the shaft of water so inserted, the 
whole Southern ocean pounds, to the trumpeting 
of the southeast trade winds, until the walls 
fall in, little by little perhaps a foot a century. 

In the evening there was a bounteous supper 
and more kava in the chief^s house and finally 
a native dance. N"uuuli is the second village 
in size in the island, and the dedication of its 
church was an affair of first impcrtance. The 
villages of the Eastern district were fully repre- 
sented in the preparations and some of them 
had moved in, bodily. Those villages that had 
crack teams of dancers were in the intensest 



competition and many a time during the tour- 
nament we were on the eve of an explosion such 
as under the old regime^, which the United 
States government supplanted four years ago, 
would have meant bloodshed and burnt villages. 
This was the most barbaric siva we had seen. 
Modestv, which is surelv 2:ainino: a foothold 
here, albeit slowly, seemed at times about to be 
forsrotten, and the sflare of one or two Ian- 
terns lit up as fierce and stark and terrible 
festivity as it is possible to conceive — all the 
more strikins; because an hour before the whole 
village, chiefs, visitors, children and dogs, had 
been gathered at prayers about the little square 
fire holes, one of which in the floor of every 
house is lighted morning and evening with a 
little bonfire of cocoanut leaves as an altar to 
the Most High. 

We had already become more or less ac- 
quainted with the visiting chiefs, their wives 
and their taupous, and very fond of some of 
them, so the evening was full of warm— hearted 
greetings and visits and Judge Gurr had joined 
us in time for supper. 

We went to bed at eleven. Mrs. Woolley and . 
I slept in the house of the missionary, on the 
only floor in the village — about ten feet by 
fifteen in the end of the school room, kept for 
visitors and provided with a beadstead and a 

84 



mosquito net. The mattress was a smooth 
board with a grass mat on it^ and it seemed to 
give the natives some pleasure to see us prepare 
for the night. There are no doors or windows 
in Samoa and the uses of privacy have entered 
into the mind of no native. The Pacific ocean 
was our wash-basin and the light of the south- 
ern moon was our only counterpain. 

It must not be gathered from this that the 
natives were impudent or stupid or that any 
quality of good hospitality was lacking. The 
natives are gently curious^ always clean, and 
never impudent, and we did not for an instanf. 
resent their wide-eyed innocence of civilized 
forms. 

There is no regular time for doing anything 
in Samoa. The people "behold the fowls of the 
air" and toil not, nor spin, nor eat, nor sleep, 
save when they feel inclined. The village grew 
quiet after midnight, but the light which burned 
in every house revealed in nearly all of them 
crowds of brown bodies sitting cross-legged on 
mats gravely visiting. In some were dancers 
practicing for the next day's competitions, and 
all about the ways and on the shore dark forms 
were moving whenever we looked out, and that 
was many times, for sleep was shy. 

There are no "^nerves'' in Samoa. Callers 
sit sweetly on their feet for hours saying not a 

85 



word. .Xobod}' says a word unless he has one 
that he wants to say. When one wants to 
leave he says tofa and leaves. Xobody cares 
why he went : nobody wonders where he is going. 

A dip in the sea, breakfast and kava installed 
the second dav — the dav of the dedication. At 
ten o^clock the procession was formed at the 
chief's honse led by the native ministers with 
the governor and his party. To describe that 
procession . is the impossibility which I now 
essay. 

Baxjk of the officials with whom by conrtesy 
we walked, the line was formed by villages. 
Each village was led by its taupon. or virgin, 
dressed in gorgeotis nudity. That is to say, in 
beads and wreaths^ and fine mats about the 
loins, and garlands in the jet black hair; but 
naked from the knee down, and from the waist 
up, save for a dangling ribbon, or an infinites- 
mal bodice of some flaming colored silk. 

The chiefs wore breech cloths and white jack- 
ets, except Mauga, high chief of the Eastern 
end of Tutuila, who had on a jacket of some 
dark stuff. The missionaries wore white 
breech cloths and white jackets, or white shirts, 
the entire garment visible and above board. 
The young men wore nothing but the usual 
lavalava or breech cloth. The other men, as 
befitted their sedater tastes, had the lavalava 



and thin cotton nndersliirts worn plain and all 
ontside, with the opening at the back. The 
women all wore npon their heads crowns or 
wreaths of small leaves, or of green banana 
leaves cut in fine strips and crumpled into a 
kind of curling fringe and on their bodies pina- 
fores or chemises of figured print falling down 
over the lavalava. But the wives of some of 
the high chiefs, for lack of some timely Amer- 
ican advice, were dressed in shirt waists and 
trailing skirts, greatly to the detriment of their 
natural charms. 

Singing a splendid h3ann, mostly bass and 
alto, owing to the men being most aggressive 
musically, we marched clear around the new 
church, the head missionary leading, bearing 
the keys. At the front door a prayer was 
offered and then the door and windows thrown 
open. 

It took an hour to stow the cons^reo-ation. 
Formality reaches its climax in Samoa. The 
governor, chiefs, and visiting whites were given 
chairs at the front with convenient interpreters 
at hand. The taupous were assembled on 
prominent benches in front of the pulpit. The 
seats were filled with the others by villages and 
the large altar space and all the aisles, with 
children and overflow sitting on mats. 

The initial exercise was the financial sfcate- 

87 



ment showing wliat gifts liad been received 
and who the donors were. It appeared that the 
church had been two years in building, had 
cost, exclusive of the common labor, which is 
not counted, $6,750. The work was all done 
by, natives, except the masonry and joining. 
They cut the coral and shaped it and carried 
it on their shoulders man by man and passed 
it to the masons on the rising walls. The 
money was all raised by natives by the sale of 
copra. The church was dedicated free of debt 
and the American hold-up which appertains to 
dedications was conspicuous by its absence. 

Addresses were made by the governor, my- 
self, and several chiefs and after three hours 
of initiatory services Nuuuli church was open 
for business. 

This is distinctively and aggressively a Chris- 
tian country. The Bible being the only im- 
portant book printed in the Samoan language, 
everybody has it and everybody reads it, but 
mainly for purposes of "church."'^ The Sa- 
moans, like the Americans, consider the church 
the house of God. and the business house and 
dwelling house and state house as belonging to 
somebody else or something else. Yet in every 
village the little church, or at any rate a grass- 
house with a bell in front, in the midst of 
carelessness and worldiness, rises to prophesy. 

88 



After service the feast was spread on palm 
leaves overlaid with banana leaves, nnder a 
canopy of other palm leaves, on the ground. 
The "table'" was two hundred feet long by four 
wide, and loaded with Samoan delicacies, pi^s, 
fish, fowls, taro and fruits, with cocoanuts "^^to 
drink/" 'No knives, no forks, no spoons, no 
dishes — '^^nothing but leaves/" I sat with the 
daughter of a. famous chief of the island of 
Manua. She opened proceedings by picking up 
a roast pig, tearing it to bits with her hands 
and picking out of the wreck sundry tid-bits 
for me, and I ate them like a man and a 
Samoan. 

After the feast, the food was apportioned 
among the guests. A chicken, a pig's head, a 
pile of cocoanuts and two sticks of sugar cane 
(to be sucked) were my share. Then the vil- 
lagers gathered up the basketfuls of broken 
food. 

Then foUow^ed, after an interval of half an 
hour, the tololo, which was performed with 
great pomp and circumstance. We were 
grouped in front of the chief's house facing 
the Malae, or main street of the village. From 
the further end of the street advanced the 
taupou of Nuuuli newly arrayed, attended by 
the young men and women all dancing and 
singing, and bearing gifts of cocoanuts, sugar 
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cane, ehiekens, taro and kava. These were laid 
before iis on a huge mat of palm leaves just 
torn from the trees for the purpose. Then while 
a young chief advanced and made the usual com- 
plimentary speech completing the gift, the tau- 
pou calmly removed her dress of tapa cloth and 
gave it to the .governor. The "dress" was sim- 
ply a piece of tapa cloth folded about the waist 
over the lavalava. 

Finally came the siva, or dance, the culmina- 
tion of the day^s doings. It was now four 
o'clock and the torrid sun was steaming down 
the west. Mats were spread in the Malae. The 
taupous were dressed again in finer — fewer 
clothes. Then they came on, by villages. Young 
men nearly naked, with glorious physiques, sat 
on either side of their taupou and went through 
their dances mth wonderful precision and utter 
savagery. It seemed impossible that these were 
the same people we had seen devoutly follow- 
ing the service, Bible in hand, for three solid 
hours that morning. 

After several "numbers^^ sitting, they stood 
to dance and then the absolute wildness of it 
all came out in full relief. They do not touch 
each other except with the linger tips upon the 
shoulders, and that only for completing the 
figure which they are executing. When they 



91 



stand;, they do not tonch at all and they never 
touch the taiipou. 

The scenes are lewd only so far as semi- 
nudity and certain pointing and grimacing may 
make them so. 

The missionaries would be glad to pnt an 
end to the siva, but they might as well try to 
pnt an end to the equator. They are succeed- 
ing in a moderate increase of the drapery and 
in time no doubt will succeed in abolishing the 
dance altogether. But nothing can be done 
quickly in Samoa. 

When the sun was setting the last siva had 
been done and the dedication or the orgy was 
over and we had been actually and absolutely 
back to nature for two davs. 



YIIL 

Pago Pago, May 30, 1905. 

THE bachelors of the Avar-ship '^^ Adams/' 
stationed in Tutuila, gave a party on 
shore in the villaare of Fas^atos'a: and 
away out there in the middle of the ocean, pre- 
cisely as would have been the case in Wasliing- 
ton or Chicago, the burning question among 
the feminine invitees was what to wear. Mrs. 
Woolley, who had been helping Fanua and 

92 



Faapia design and make a costume for Siuti!. 
the queen of Pago Pago, got an idea. It was 
new. It was daring. It was giddy. She asked 
Paniia to dress her as a tanpou for the party. 
She was told that no white woman had ever 
dressed in that costume in Samoa, bnt the na- 
tive friends were plainly delighted at the pro- 
posal. 

So when the festive honr arrived an innova- 
tion might have been seen moving in full dress 
— bnt not so verv fnll — alonsr the shore from 
Jnde-e Gnrr^s house to Fas^atosra; but not alone. 
Besides Fanua, the judge, and myself, there 
were others. IsTothing escapes the eye of the 
natives. Soon there was a crowd of villagers 
at our heels inspecting the new taupou. The 
crowd grew until we entered the palm-em- 
bowered bungalow of the bachelors. 

The verdict seemed to be favorable. Tlie 
new queen had made a hit, and from that time 
until we sailed, she was greeted with a percep- 
tible increase of native cordiality, and the judg- 
ment of the whites was equally favorable, or at 
any rate equally kind. When Tufele, a mag- 
nificent chief from the island of Manua, entered 
the room with his equally handsome wife, a 
little after we arrived, he went straight up to 
her and took her hand in both of his, ejaculat-. 
ing with evident approval, "Ha, the American 

93 



taupou/' and the name stnek to her as long as 
we remained in Samoa. 

The new tanpon served the kava to the bach- 
elors^ guests^ giving in the operation an excel- 




"T/ie American Taupou." 

lent imitation of the genuine performance; 
and when we left for our lodgings at midnight 
the footpath on the beach was populous with 

01 



natives waiting to say "talofa"^ to the suddenly 
exalted queen. 

The dress that did the business was made out 
of black tapa cloth — that is to say, the inner 
bark of the mulberry tree beaten into sheets 
with mallets of hard wood, and died with vege- 
table dyes. The waist was low-necked and 
sleeveless; the skirt had its citizenship some 
eighteen inches above the earth, at the lower 
side, and had the tapa cloth cut into a fringe 
around the bottom. The neck and sleeves — or 
rather arm-holes — were fringed in the same 
way. Over the skirt a Samoan fme mat trim- 
med with small red, yellow, and green bird 
feathers, was fastened with a long narrow sash 
of white tapa cloth. A garland of fine ferns 
and red hibiscus blossoms completed the neck 
of the dress, and the finishing touches were 
chains of bright red seeds, in many strands, 
worn around the neck and shoulders, and a 
wreath of gorgeous hibiscus blossoms in the 
hair. 

After the party the entire costume was pre- 
sented to the debutante to be taken to Amer- 
ica. She confidently looks forward to having 
her beautiful Samoan friend, Fanua, as her 
guest at 5535 Cornell avenue, Chicago, at no 
distant day. 

If in these letters I have seemed to slight 

95 



the white friends who were so good to ns and 
so good to be known^ the explanation is that 
onr visit to the islands had from the first plan 
of it, and kept to the end of it, the emphasis 
on the natives, whom to know as we know them 
in the naive unconcern of "civilized'^ conven- 
tionalities was and is yet like an enchantment. 
We have often marked when on our travels 
how small the world is, how certain]}^ we are 
akin to everybody, and how rapidly the ends 
of the earth are becoming knit together by 
many ties. Samoa furnished another example. 
When we called on the governor, and in course 
of the conversation it appeared that we were 
of Chica2:o, he said incidentallv : "I was born 
at Paris, 111." Then in answer to my question 
he said that his father was the Eev. Jesse 
Moore, my father^s friend, and that his wife 
was Miss Johns, of Decatur, whose father I 
had known by reputation in my boyhood. Later, 
when we had ^^moved in" to the governor's 
house and spent the long tropical evenings 
talking of everything, Mrs. Johns, Mrs. Moore's 
mother, recalled having visited in Delaware, 
0.. in her youth and having met Mrs. Wool- 
ley's family there. So the great web of human 
life is weaving on ; the hnman threads run to- 
gether, interweave, part, seem lost, come back. 



96 




Falls at F again. 



come together^ and only One knows what the 
pattern is to be when all is done. 

'Mrs. Johns is a wonderfully interesting 
woman, whose early life was cast in intimate 
relationship with Lincoln, Trnmbnll, Davis, 
Douglass, Edwards, Lsher, and that galaxy of 
giants in the early days of Illinois. Her fath- 
er's house in Piatt county was their home at 
intervals for many years when they were "on 
the circuit.^' 

I say, if I have seemed to touch lightly on 
our attachment and obligation to these charm- 
ing friends, and to have . given Judge Gurr's 
wife, Fanua, precedence of himself in this cor- 
respondence, it is their own fault, or their own 
misfortune, for not being Samoans, bare-footed, 
bare-armed, bare-headed, with hibiscus blos- 
soms over their left ears. 

When the "Sierra'' steamed up Pago Pago 
bav on the morninp- of Mav 31, our hearts were 
heav}^, and we grudged the hours that remamea. 
We stowed our "stuff" on board and spent the 
time in rapid-fire visiting with the dear friends 
that came on to wait with us until the hour 
for sailing. Fanua had robbed her own rose 
garden for our cabin. Judge Gurr had given us 
a copy of Carlyle from the library of Eobert 
Louis Stevenson ^\dth memoranda in his own 
hand and his name on the fly-leaf. 

98 



At noon we cleared for Auckland, and as the 
ship headed for open sea we looked onr reluc- 
tant good-byes to the idyllic hay and the 
familiar villages, while the palm trees from 
water's edo;e to mountain summit waved to us 
"Talofa/' "Come again/' which, God willing, we 
shall snrely do. 

Jnst as we got in motion Professor Enther- 
ford, of McGill University, the great physicist, 
made himself known, and so reminded us that 
the old hnman loom was weaving right on at 
sea no less than on the land. The whole world 
of science knows who he is. hnt to ns at the 
moment he was only a gifted young Xew Zea- 
lander who married Miss N"ewton, of Christ - 
church, daughter of our dear friend and the 
head of one of our ISTew Zealand homes. 

For two days out of Pago Pago the sea was 
like a pond and the air almost too sweet, cool- 
ing the Winter. But two days out of Auck- 
land we encountered a terrific head sea, telling 
of nasty weather down below. We plunged on 
into the storm that leaped upon us with a yell, 
and our hopes of making port early on Mon- 
day, June 5, went glimmering. For two days 
the ship seemed fighting for mere life, the di- 
ning-room was all but deserted. I was alone at 
the chief officer's table for most of the time. 
The poor taupou was in a state of utter col- 

99 



lapse in her cabiii;, and the sea was breaking 
across our bows and drenching everythiDg. Bnt 
the great eight-thonsand horse-power engines 
pounded right on, and at 9 o'clock Monday 
night we made fast to Auckland pier. 

C. H. Poole was on hand to meet ns, with 
Wesley Spragg, of the Xew Zealand Alliance, 
our host of four years ago, and our friend after 
the order of Melchizedek, without beginning of 
life or end of days. 

Our baggage passed the customs without be- 
ing opened, and with a politeness on the part 
of the officials which made us blush internally, 
remembering some experiences with our own 
customs inspectors at home. 



IX. 

En route South Island, July 20, 1905. 

THIS letter ought to contain something 
about the beauty of Auckland, but I am 
not good at that. In fact, however, 
this harbor is one of the "sights'^ of the world, 
and is certainly magnificent. I do not now re- 
member any other city that has a great ocean 
on either side and the approach coming from 
America is on a scale of magnificence which 
promptly eliminates me as an artist in plum- 
bago. The parks of Auckland are old volcanoes, 

100 



and the fences are slabs and chunks of scoria. 
The landscape is green, is as constant and as 
persistent as the blue of the sea and sky, and 
the trees are everything that belongs to the 
tropics, including the Australian eucalyptus, 
which scattered sparsely through the fields, as 
it is here, is really beautiful. 

It is midwinter now and a "hard winter^" — 
so the old inhabitant says — "very exceptional,'^ 
but camelias, gladiolus, calla lilies, lemon blos- 
soms, heather, acacia, gorse, and broom are 
blooming everywhere, people are planting gar- 
dens, and the smell of garden fires is in the air. 
The children are bare-footed and heated houses 
are unknown. 

The people of New Zealand are "our folks^^ 
— that is to say, they are homey, and hearty, 
and hospitable, in the superlative degree. They 
are not as elastic a people as we are, not so 
sudden and wide open. They live behind 
hedges and blinds. They have no roaring, 
crackling fires; they get no coddling with 
steam pipes; they are somewhat rigid in com- 
parison with us. But on the other hand, their 
homes are sacred to home things, business gets 
locked up in the shop at night, and the big 
dining-room, which is the social exchange of 
every house, sparkles with running conversa- 
tion. 

101 



But when these people come out from, behind 
their hedges and stone walls and window 
blinds and get together in a public meeting 
thev are simply glorious in their sturdy, open 
honesty and codiality. If a speaker has a good 
time they cheer to the echo. If he has hard 
sledding they lift with might and main. If he 
is ill natured they sit on him. If he makes an 
error they challenge him. But the whole 
thing is as open as sunlight, and as antiseptic. 

Politically, Xew Zealand is by far the most 
interesting and inspiring country I have ever 
seen. Just as Japan, in these days, stands first 
in war, this colony stands first in peace. Just 
as Japan is just now the greatest killer, this 
country is the greatest maker-alive. Absolutely 
any respectable and respectful proposition can 
get a hearing on its merits here. The referen- 
dum secured by the Prohibitionists in 1896, 
under which, automatically, the liquor prob- 
lem comes up every three years, has worked out 
the greatest peaceable revolution of modern 
times, in making the people conscious of them- 
selves. ^Mistakes are made here as everywhere; 
there are grafters and there is dirty politics; 
but this is actually what the United States is 
not as yet, a government of the people, for the 
people, and by the people. 

The railways of Xew Zealand, strange as it 

102 



ma}'' sound to American ears are operated in the 
interest of the people. Freight is classed some- 
what the same as in America,, hut the rate fixed 
for each class per ponnd^ per ton^ or per car, is 
as fair and as invariable as postage. The man, 
or corporation, that posts a million letters 
pays at the same rate as those who send one. 
JSTew Zealand freights are like that, honest, 
decent. 

Strange to say, too, the goods are handled 
promptly and carefnlly. A poor man^s table and 
chair, sent by freight, is handled on the theory 
that it is important for him to get it delivered 
in good order and on time. A carload of silk 
and diamonds wonld fare no better. 

The freight cars — "goods waggons,^" as they 
call them — are fnnny little fiat cars. When 
the}^ are loaded with perishable goods they are 
covered with tarpaulins. Shunting makes al- 
lowance for the possibility that the property 
is worth keeping together, and that the cars' 
may be needed for another trip. 
• The station agents do not despise a small 
transaction, nor take it as a personal insult to 
be asked a civil question. 

In consequence, the small shopkeeper has a 
chance to develop his business and himself, and 
the incorporated hog can't eat him up, nor 
root him under. 

103 



Passenger traffic is on the same simple, hon- 
est lines. One pays a penny a mile if he rides 
in a second-class carriage, or towpence a mile 
first-class. There are no passes save for pub- 
lic officials on public business, and distinguished 
visitors. A second-class carriage is like an 
omnibus, only much bigger. It is the demo- 
cratic vehicle. In it one may be crowded, or 
may be annoyed by a drunk man or an un- 
washed one, or hear himself discussed, if he is 
a public speaker, in ways that do not tend to 
edification. The double price for first-class 
carriages makes them quiet, roomy and cleanly. 

There are no sleeping cars in New Zealand, 
nor need of any. Through trains carry dining- 
cars, very primitive from our point of view, 
but serving excellent meals — soup, meat, two 
vegetables, tea, bread, butter, jam and cheese, 
all two shillings. Tips are all but unknown. 

Baggage is carried in "the van.^^ The check- 
ing system is in operation, but practically un- 
used. Every one sees to putting his own "lug- 
gage^^ in the van, labelled for his destination, 
and then lets nature take its course. At any 
station the train will be held any length of 
time to enable one to identify his things if by 
any chance they should not have been put off 
re2:ularlv. 

Trunks, etc., are carefully lifted off, and set 

104 



down on the platform without a jar. A good 
trnnk goes down the generations in a family 
like an heirloom. 

Only one man accompanies the train. He is 
called a guard. He tries to accommodate the 
travellers, is plainly dressed, pnts on no airs. 
He carries a book of blank forms of tickets, 
with carbon paper for copying, and in case any 
passenger has failed to "book,^^ he is supplied 
without a murmur. He seems to think it im- 
portant that his passengers be comfortable and 
get to where they want to go. It does not 
seem to occur to him that the train is run for 
him. 

The passenger cars are various in style, since 
the department is always ready to try new 
ideas. The train in Avhich I am riding as I 
write this, for instance, consists of the engine, 
a second-class carriage, two first-class carriages, 
a van for mail and one for baggage. The 
second-class carriage is thirty feet long. One 
of the first-class carriages is somewhat like an 
American car, only much smaller and with a 
row of seats for two on one side of the aisle 
and a row of single seats on the other. The 
car in which I am riding has six compartments 
for six passengers each, opening on an outside 
corridor fenced in with wire. All first-class 
cars are provided at this time of the year with 

105 



hot water cans for the feet. These cars are 
made in America^ but the department is begin- 
ning to build cars^ in a small way. 

Trains stop long at stations, for nobody- 
hurries. 

The station agent is a quiet man, in uniform, 
who rings a dinner bell five minutes before the 
train is to start, and again when it is time to 
go. Even after the last bell he walks the length 
of the train, saying: "All seats, please,^^ and 
if there is any reason for it he holds the train 
a little longer. 

At the station everybody gets a cup of tea 
freshly made and served politely and quietly. 
The prices, fixed by the Government, are posted 
in large type, and all the food is clean and per- 
fectly prepared. 

The station agent also sells the tickets, and 
does not feel it incumbent on him to snub the 
ignorant or awkward, or steal the change. 

ISTo liquors are sold at railroad stations, and 
hereafter the seats on trains are to be num- 
bered and sold like theater seats, each passen- 
ger owning his seat and holding a coupon for it. 

The policy of the Government is to regard 
the railways as adjuncts to the settlement of 
the country and look upon the earning of a 
large profit as of minor importance as com- 
pared to the benefits which accrue to the State 

106 



by giving to the settlers a convenient and cheap 
means of transporting the produce of their 
farms to the markets; and any surplus which 
may accrue after the payment of 3 per cent on 
the capital cost of the lines is returned to the 
users of the railways in cheapened freights 
and increased facilities. 

The present milage open for trafuc is 2,071 
miles, and the policy of the Government is to 
distribute the increase of railway facilities 
fairly throughout the Colony at no more rapid 
rate than the conservative management of the 
finances will admit. 

The present condition of raihvay development 
is extraordinary when one remembers that the 
Colony is barely sixty years old. But it seems 
to me two things ought to be done without 
much delay. 

The present narrow gauge, with its appropri- 
ate light rails, ought to be changed to standard 
gauge with heavy rails and about double the 
present possible speed. 

There ought to be trunk lines north and 
south through both islands, from Auckland to 
Wlellington in the North Island, and from Pic- 
ton to Invercargill in the South Island. That 
would give a coherency of plan for extensions 
which is now absent and impossible. 

The length of time now required to go from 

107 



Auckland to Invercargill is ridiculous in an up- 
to-date State like this. 

Tlie same assiduous attention to details 
tliat marks the railway servants is to be seen 
also in the matter of stage routs and wagon 
roads, and steamboat service on the cold lakes 
that are an important feature of scenic ISTew 
Zealand. 

I have just been into the heart of the Ee- 
markables, the finest mountain range in the 
Colony. The sail up Lake Wakatipu, between 
the crowding, beetling mountain tops, is grand 
beyond words. I know nothing fhier in Swit- 
zerland, and here the Government has a neat, 
clean little steamer, the ^'Mountaineer,^^ which 
gives excellent accommodations at a fixed and 
very reasonable cost, and no tips expected or 
allowed. 

And how one can eat, sailing in that blue 
water, thirteen hundred feet deep with snowy 
summits towering over him, and ozone from 
the glaciers filling him with a sense of wings 
and eloquence and rich and glorious health and 
love of eternal life. 

This country is the magnificent object lesson 
in the world as to the inner, finer meanings of 
democracy, and in no department does it ap- 
pear to better advantage than in a railway ser- 
vice that, instead of skinning and defying the 

108 



people, serves them faithfully^ efficiently and 
impartially. 

X. 



En route Sonth Island, July 10, 1905. 

WHILE ]\[rs. Woolley is recuperating 
among the geysers at Eotorua, I am 
swinging down the east coast of the 
South Island, to leftward, feasting my eyes on 
the boundless blue Pacific, which matches the 
heavens so completely that there is no visible 
sky line where they meet, and to the right, on 
snowy mountain ranges, that form the back- 
bone of the richest province in Australasia. 

One who has drunk so deep as I have of a 
nation's hospitality can scarcely be expected to 
write critically of its customs — much less to 
make a dissection of its homes. At the vitals 
of them, good homes are much alike the world 
over. The differences are trifles, but they are 
interesting. Some of them I jot down here, 
almost at random. 

Eemember, that generalizing always means 
inaccuracy. What one gains by it in faculty 
he loses in exactness. Every kind of home life 
is to be found in ^ew Zealand, save that which 
sqeezes itself into an American flat. ,T have 
while traveling here looked into a dainty 

110 




o 



AmerieaiL home, with warm rooms and pretty 
furniture and crockery and bic-a-bac, and into 
every kind from that down to an ugiy^, drafty 
English country seat. But there is a typical 
colonial home wherein is the ark of the cove- 
nant of 'New Zealand progress. It is that I 
seek to show you in this letter^ very sketchily 
and roughly, but affectionate!}^ and;, as far as 
I go, truly. 

It is one story high — in view of possible 
earthquakes — painted brown and roofed with 
corrigated iron. You may easily miss it if you 
don^t look sharp, for it is all but hidden behind 
a hedge of laurel, thorn, privet or cedar, pierced 
with high arched loopholes for the massive 
doors or gates that open with true British non- 
committalness into a garden of uncompromising 
rectangles shackled with box borders, where 
plants in great variety and beautifully tended, 
but destitute of ease, or grace, or liberty, keep 
lock step, as in penal servitude, going no- 
where but to the biennial pruning, when the 
cedars are shaved like peg tops and the holly 
bushes are squared up like a wall. I think I 
have seen the black birds wipe their feet before 
entering these gardens, and tivd thrushes shun 
them as they would a trap. I have seen notJi- 
ing here like our restful little 10x25 American 
wildernesses that are so free and easy as irre- 

112 



sistibly to suggest a roll or a somersault alike 
to limber-legged lads or stiff-backed old boys 
that come under the spell of them. 

All this, of course, refers to town houses. In 
the country, houses are flanked mth exquisite 
paddocks shut up in stone walls built of vol- 
canic scoria. 

The house is, say, 40 x 60, with a veranda on 
two sides and a hall straight through the center 
front to rear. One of the front rooms is the 
drawing room. and is dedicated to "company .^^ 
The other front room is the dining-room and 
it is the hub of the family life. The great 
table is never out of commission; if it is not 
occupied with food and drink then it is with 
books, or work or games. It is the only room 
where there is regularly a fire, in cold weather, 
and at the coldest its small grate has but a 
handful of sticks or coal, and a psychological 
blaze. In this room the family and the fa- 
miliar friends do all their visiting. The prepa- 
rations for the four meals a day go right on 
in the midst of the work or play. When the 
meal is over the table is cleared for the heavy 
cloth that serves between meals, and the gentle, 
genuine, generous family life goes on its quiet 
way, without a break. 

The kitchen is located away to the rear, with- 
out any reference whatever to its normal rela- 

113 



tions with the dining-room, and is quite desti- 
tute of the attractiveness of its Americhr. con- 
temporary. There are no sv/inging doors or bnt- 
ler^s pantries, but the N"ew Zeahmd Idtchen "gets 
there just the same/^ for it is thoroughly clean, 
thoroughly ventilated, the food is carried to 
ta.hle under pewter covers, the kettle of hot 
water is alwavs steamins; on the trivet in the 
dining-room, and bad cookery is unknown. 

The bedchambers are smaU and square and 
open only from the hall. There are no chests 
— only wardrobes — and no attempts at luxury 
or beauty. The sleeping room is for sleeping 
in, strictly and severely, and the bed is soft 
and warm and clean and loaded with blankets. 

The whole house is carpeted with linoleum, 
with small rugs beside the beds and before the 
sofas and fireplaces. 

;The meals are indoor picnics, where the par- 
takers are as free as sparrows. The food is as 
delicious as it is in Maryland, but without the 
Maryland profusion. ISTew Zealand housekeep- 
ers lead the world in bread, butter and mutton, 
and in the other staples they are not second 
to any. The colony is run by tea power, and 
water is used for cooking and the bath. Fish 
is eaten with two forks, puddings with a fork 
and spoon, fruit with a knife and fork, and 
napkins are called "serviettes.^^ Everybody 

11 I 



v^ 



looks out for everybody and the spirit is that of 
flawless hospitality and good fellowship. There 
are four meals a day, .besides afternoon tea at 
4 o'clock, breakfast, dinner, tea and supper at 
bedtime. The family life is lived alond. Every- 
body talks .about everything. Conversation 
flows as brightly and unaffectedly as meadow 
brooks. Peevishness and palaver are equally 
conspicuous by their absence. 

From a Yankee standpoint the absence of 
fires is the only drawback. I am \^Titing in 
mid-winter. The old inhabitant says this is ^'a 
bitter day.^' The mercury is about 38 degrees. 
It is cold, however. The humid air and the 
south wind reach one to the marrow, and the 
houses feel like wells. I am writing this on the 
train near Invercargill. I have my overcoat 
on, a scarf round my neck, a heavy rug over 
my knees and a hot water can at my feet. ISText 
month spring begins, and before we leave I^Tew 
Zealand it will be mid-summer. 

The language of New Zealand inclines to 
have what is called the colonial accent, but the 
voices are soft and free from any nasal tone, «> 
and good American slang passes current at face 
value. The vocabulary is much smaller than 
ours, but much exacter. Both in conversation 
and in more formal speech the language has 
less twilight, half tones, light and shade, after- 

115 



glow— than ours, and is therefore less stimnlat- 
ing, but as I say, it is more "certain to a cer- 
tain intent in particulars/^ as Chitty says. 

Some of the names of common things are 
such as we use rarely, if at all. "Treating/^ as 
we use the word, in connection with the drink 
habit, is called "shouting;'^ a sidewalk is a 
"foot path;^^ a church festival is a "sale of 
work.^^ a field is a "paddock,'^ a "section^' of 
land is not a square mile but a lot of variable 
size, from a quarter of an acre up to five acres. 

All these generalizations with regard to the 
people are completely astray, unless it be kept 
in mind that they apply only to masses of peo- 
ple and only very broadly, even to them. 

ISTew Zealand is far more like America than 
it is like Great Britain, but it is far "slower^^ 
than America. There are no "nerves^^ here. 
People sleep late. They do not hurry to busi- 
ness. The trains run slowly. The shops close 
early. There are many holidays. A day^s work 
is eight hours. ISTobody sputters. iSTobody gets 
left. The marked difference between the two 
countries is the same that exists between us 
and the old country, but in a less degree. The 
difi'erence is in rigidity. Everything American 
is put together loosely. Everything British is 
put together tight — jokes, clothes, sermons, lo- 
comotives, and in consequence American things 

116 



are nicer than British things, bnt they don^t 
last as long. An English engine is as stiff as if 
it were cast solid; its Yankee relative is as lim- 
her and adaptable as if it had a soul. An 
English speech does not get itself misquoted, 
beaense the speaker leaves nothing to a nod or 
a shrug or a grin or an inflection. English con- 
versation does not exaggerate and the positive 
degree of a Yankee is a Scotch superlative. 
British words are as assorted and definite as 
the types in a printer's case. They are incon- 
vertible. They have no fringe. It follows that 
the people get the credit of being honester than 
we. They are not, in their purpose; in their 
expression they are. John^s word is not better 
than Jonathan's, but it is less apt to get dam- 
aged in transit. The reason John seems to us 
dull to our humor is that exaggeration upsets 
him and a job lot of meanings to the same 
word make him gasp. 

Sincerity, stability, solvency, these are the 
tall traits of New Zealanders. What they say 
they mean. What they say, they stand to. 
What they say is all there. 

Beauty to them is ninety per cent, ability. 
They know nothing about luxury, their homes 
are not as pretty as ours. Neither are their 
clothes, or their shops, or their vehicles. Their 
children are taught to keep away from the fire. 

117 



The hardeiimg of life, to keep it independent 
and dependable, is almost Spartan in its grim- 
ness. Steam pipes^ soft fabrics, beautiful ices 
or candies^ and the whole sphere of things like 
these^ make slow headwa}' here; but they make 
some. 

These are the most satisfactor}' people I have 
ever knoAvn; the fundamental lines of character 
show up so plainly in them. They never keep 
you guessing. They do not protciKl. They bow 
the head to British law. They bow the knee 
to God alone. 

As an experiment station for showing how 
Christianity and what Christianity will grow 
and bear in practical politics, it is the most in- 
teresting and important bit ol land on earth. 
More than ninety per cent of -the people are 
professed Christians. 

The judges are appointed for life, on the 
ground of character and learning. The law- 
yers are men of scholarship and pride in tbeir 
profession. They still wear wigs and gowns and 
hold up the fine aid sense of honor among 
themselves as officers of the court. It is a hard}'' 
land of elementary ideas. It is a great debat- 
ing society with power to act. Conveniences 
and danties and luxuries have not yet caught 
the public attention. The barber shops sell 
tobacco and walking sticks and shear men as if 

118 



the}^ were sheep. There are no bootblacks. 
There is no snch thing known as "a shine.'" 
Boots are only "cleaned." Of confectionery, as 
we know it, they have none. What they have 
is called "lollies/" and it is as bad as the name. 
To be sonnd, to be square, to be snccessfnL 
these are the three cardinal doctrines in New 
Zealand. They have not yet considered how to 
be comfortable. 



XT 

Eotoriia, Jnly 16, 1905. 

O.^N" my arrival at Rotorua, the volcanic 
wonderland of Few Zealand, and the 
chief center of the Maori population, I 
found the native part of the comimunity in a 
state of great agitation. The cause of the agi- 
tation was the death of a great chief, Kepa Te 
Rangipu.aawhe^ at Wjiakarewarewa. the Maori 
village^ which stands near Rotorua in the midst 
of the ge3'ser district. 

I had attended native funerals on our former 
visit to this country, but none of such great 
general interest as this. Chief K'epa was the 
last of the old Arawa tribe, and a distinguished 
man, even measured hj British standards. In 
the war of 1868 between the Maoris and the 
British, he had chosen the British side and 

119 




Maori chief. 



pravely and faithfully, served the Queen against 
his own people. On this account he was held 
in high esteem by the present government, and 
on his death, accorded full militarv honors in 
^is burial. 

•4:^Thirty artillerymen were sent from Auek- 
• land, accompanied by a military band, and ar- 
rived at Eotorua on the morning of the 14th 

"of July. 

Meanwhile, from all sections of the King 

. county (the territory set apart for the exclusive 
tise of the Maori people), natives were arriving 

,ts jn large numbers. The Tangi, or "crying eere- 

>f"mony,'^ over the body, lasted three v/eeks. 
yhis tangi embodies practically the same idea 
that the Irish wake embodies, only in cruder 
expression, and covering a much longer period 
of time. 

' The visiting natives are entertained by the 
tribe in which the death occurs, and the feast- 
ing and wailing and lauding of the dead con- 
tinue until every scrap of provisions has been 
eaten. ^*^ As the visitors arrive the Maori saluta- 
tion of rubbing noses, silently, is used with 
every evidence of affection and the greatest 
grief. Meanwhile, at intervals, great feasts are 
provided, and kept up day and night, until the 
funeral obsequies have been accomplished. 
Hundreds of pigs and fowls and fishes, with 

121 




<5> 



O 



vegetables^ and many niixtares, are gathered, 
and nnfortnnately there is no lack. of beer and 
whisky and tobacco. All the nativesi— men and 
women alike — smoke, and nearly all of them 
drink to excess, if they get a chance. As the 
ceremony proceeds, the intervals between the 
feasts are given np to wierd chants and wail 
ings, with improvisations npon the virtues, 
history and deeds of the deceased. 

On this occasion the G-overnment appropriated 
two thousand dollars toward the expenses of 
the feast, and another five hundred dollavs 
toward the erection of a ivoniiraont over the 
srrave. 

On the arrival of the artillery compan}^, the 
native warriors received it with the royal 
Maori honors, in the dancing of the Haka,, on 
the bridge spanning the stream which divides 
the "King county^, from the lands of the 
whites. 

The Haka, or war dance of olden times, is 
most grotesque and even horrible. Some fifty 
young men, sons of reigning chiefs, with tat- 
tooed faces, dressed in short skirts of flax, and 
fulh^ armed, engaged in hideous contortions 
and grimaces, intermingled with threatening 
gestures, harsh cries and shooting of guns. The 
cries were answered from the hill, in front of 
the late home of the chief, hy the j\[aorL women, 

123 



in similar cries and wailings^ and dances and 
contortions. 

The women were dressed in black with 
wreaths of green laco-podium on their heads, 
and about their waists, and green branches in 
their hands which they waved as they danced. 

The Haka lasted some fifteen or twenty min- 
utes, and was responded to by the artillery 
with a salute of forty-eight guns. Then the 
warriors divided in two lines and a gun carriage 
was drawn between them across the bridge, and 
up the hill, to the whare (house) of the de- 
ceased, where the Haka was repeated. 

The coffin was then placed upon the gun 
carriage, and the funeral procession was formed. 
Back of the gun carriage, a tall Maori bore 
wrapped up in a sheet, the personal apparel and 
belongings of the chief, followed by the bands 
with the flag which had been presented to the 
chief by Queen Victoria, in recognition of his 
distinguished services.. The procession moved 
up the hill to the music of the ^^dead march in 
Saul,^^ toward the burial plac3 on a high point 
overlooking the road. The waiKng of the 
women, far and near, filled the air with the 
deepest, weirdest melancholy. The grief of the 
natives seemed thoroughly genuine, and quite 
undiminished, although it had gone on, in the 
same way, for three weeks. 

124 



At the foot of the hill, where the grave had 
been prepared, the procession was met by the 
clergymen of Eotorua. The coffin was removed 
from the gun carriage, wrapped in the Union 
Jack, and borne to the +op, followed by the 
clergymen, the artillery compan3^ and the na- 
tive warriors. Impressive addresses were made 
by the clergymen; the band played "The Prince 
of Peace,^^ and "Abide With Me,^^ and the body 
was lowered to its last resting place. The flag, 
having been removed, was thrown about the 
shoulders of the young chief, who was thus 
designated as the successor to the old chief. 

Three volleys were fired over the grave, and 
the bugles sounded "The Eetreat/^ bringing 
the remarkable ceremony to an end. The per- 
sonal belongings of the old chief were lowered 
into the grave with his body. Everything he 
had worn, or used about his person, was "tabu,^^ 
and had to be buried with him — his clothing, 
his arnaments, bedding, rugs, fans, feather mats, 
green stone weapons, jewelry — nothing omitted. 

The death of this chief marks the end of an 
epoch. He was the last chief at whose christen- 
ing, over eighty years ago, human victims were 
sacrificed, when he was eight days old. The 
custom of sacrificing human beings has never 
been practiced in New Zealand since that time. 



12G 



XII. 

Christ ChLTreh, August 4, 1905. 

N a country so filled with charming scenery 
as N'ew Zealand is, it is difficult to make 
any comparisons^ but it seems to he the 
unanimous opinion of tourists and residents 
alike;, that a trip down the Wanganui river is 
the climax of natural beaut}^ in these islands. 
The Wanganui river is becoming famous 
throughout the world as the New Zealand 
Rhine. This is, of course^, high praise^, since it 
has the aid of no history^, or ruined castles^, or 
ancient villages. 

I have just sailed the whole length of the 
stream, from Taumanarui^ to the sea. It is 
thought to be not the best season in which to 
make the journey, this being mid-winter. But 
there is more water in the river at this season 
of the year^ more water coming over the high 
banks in the hundreds of waterfalls along the 
passage^, and the bush is always green the year 
round. So^, inasmuch as the upper reaches of 
the river are not always navagable in summer 
time, the winter passage is not without its com- 
pensations. 

At Taumanarui the stream is a mere 
creek. narroW;, but deep and very crooked, flow- 
ing between low-lying hills, and filled with dan- 
gerous rapids, only navigable by small boats; 





<3 






and Maori rivermen are the only safe pilots. 

We made the first ten miles in a small nap th a 
lannch, which at times had to he tnrned about 
so as to drift through the rapids while the en- 
gine was pulling with all its might np stream. 

The windings of the stream were so abrupt 
that progress was necessarily slow. At the end 
of this difficult ten miles^ we were transferred 
to a larger boat, which continued the journey 
the whole of the first day and tied up for the 
night at Pipiriki. We had luncheon at mid- 
day in a house-boat, tied in the river, in the 
midst of exquisite scenery. 

From this house-boat, the most magnificent 
of the A^iews begin. The low hills have here- 
grown to mountainous proportions, and the 
boat proceeds in utter solitude, between vast 
piles of wooded hills 100 to 500 feet in height, 
which drop sheer or at sharp angles, to the' 
waters^ edge. 

Everv varietv of native o-rowth is to be seen, 
untouched by the hand of man. Water fowl in 
the river, and native birds in "the bush" are 
living, as they have always lived, un scared. 

The most vronderful lliings to me were the 
enormous tree ferns, which ran up to a heiglil 
like that of palm trees, but glorious with the 
fronds and lacy folliage of true ferns, their 
trunks covered with brown velvety cloth of gold. 

130 




Si. 



o 






They are more beautiful than the palms of 
Samoa and Hawaii, but far less sympathetic 
and social, so to speak. 

Native trees are like the natives themselves. 
The Hawaiians and Samoans are affectionate, 
entreating, alluring, they meet one at the shore 
with outstretched hands and words of gentle 
greeting. So the palm,?, are aWays speaking 
and beckoning.- 

The Maoris, on the other hand, are a steri;, 
silent, martial people, dignified, rigid, of 
haughty bearing. So, the tree ferns are splen- 
did in their glorious taciturnity, but unmoving, 
unbending, unsoftening in their grandeur. 
Their boughs make no noise when shaken by 
the wind, and their brown clothes are stiff as 
coats of mail. 

The same peculiarity characterizes all the 
trees, and indeed all the landscapes. I have not 
yet seen New Zealand in summer time, but the 
impression made upon me, so far, b}^ the 
scener}^, is that it is less responsive and cordial 
than in the islands toward the equator. 

At Pipiriki I spent the night at a very good 
hotel, situated on a high point overlooking the 
river. The landlord met me by appointment 
and rendered most valuable and courteous as- 
sistance. I was the only woman on board the 
boats during the voyage, except native women. 

132 



That first day's journey is quite beyond any 
descriptive powers of mine. The Wanganui 
differs from the Columbia in being on a far 
smaller scale in every way, but it is more com- 
prehensive. It differs from the Hudson in 
presenting a panorama of continuous grandeur. 

The trip, so far as my mental attitude was 
concerned, was in the nature of an exclamation 
point two hundred miles long. 

From Pipiriki, which we left the second 
morning, we had a third and much larger boat, 
for the river had now become a large stream, 
whose shores were more or less inhabited by 
Marris. Their villages drew down at intervals 
to the water's edge, vocal with dogs and fra- 
grant with unnamable odors, where the boat 
landed to put down take up passengers. The 
names of these villages gave one a shock — "Je- 
rusalem V' ''London ?' "Judea V "Canaan V etc. 

AYe arrived at Wanganui, a handsome little 
city, at the mouth of the river, on the west 
coast, about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. I was 
still the only white woman on board, friends 
were expecting me and I was delightfully enter- 
tained by Mr. and Mrs. Carson. Mr. Carson is 
editor of the Wanganui Chronicle, one of the 
most influential papers of the colony. 

It depresses me to close this letter with a 
feeling of such utter inability even to put on 

133 



paper my own impressions of the Wansfr-'mii 
river scenery. But I trust to the pi^^^ire^^ ^o 
tell of the beauties I have hcen nnahle 



XIII. 

Graymouth, Westland, Sept. 22, 1905. 

THE Sonth Island^ or^ as it is sometimes 
called, the Middle Island, of New Zea- 
land, presents an extraordinary pano- 
rama to the lover of natural scenery. The east 
and west coasts are ver}^ dissimilar. They are 
divided from each other by a range of snow- 
capped mountains, called "The Southern Alps.^^ 
The eastern slopes of these mountains dip 
gently to the Canterbury plains, and from there 
on to the sea, presenting to the eye fine grazing 
lands, and cultivated farms, broken by mount- 
ain spurs, and forests, here and there. 

The western slope carries one to rough 
coasts, through mountain ranges, on whose foot- 
hills millions of sheep are grazing, and from 
whose snows innumerable Water-falls descend 
to gold, and coal, and iron mines, and countless 
flax fields in the coastward marshes. 

We left Christehurch early Tuesday morning, 
September 19th, to cross the mountains, by the 
Otira gorge, to the west coast. This journey is 
considered one of the finest in 'New Zealand, 

135 







o 



«> 

^ 



o 
S: 

02 



and we counted ourselves fortunate in being 
able to make it. By noon we were at Spring- 
field, where we took the coach, and it was not 
long before we were off. Our seats were box 
seats, and as the coaches are the old-fashioned 
kind, with their clumsy bodies swung on leather 
belts, and giving one great jolts every roll of 
the wheels over any obstruction, the feeling 
was like a continual falling down. My mind 
pictured David Copperfield going to London, 
and I feel sure the coach was the same pattern 
that Cruickshank drew in his pictures of that 
time. These coaches have six horses, and can 
carry nine outside passengers, and crowd ten 
inside. 

Though it rained and snowed all the first 
day, we like Casibianca, never left our post, by 
faith preferring to suffer from the elements 
outside, rather than enjoy the pleasures of 
steaming, ha3''-scented, moist air inside. 

The rain here in Kew Zealand does not mean 
a quiet, gentle shower, but clouds opening, and 
pouring down in streams and sheets. The 
Colonials do not seem to mind the rain or 
weather, and well it is for them that it is so, 
for they would be very unhappy if they fretted 
about rain-water. There is a legend of the west 
coast which affirms that all the children are 
web-footed. I do not know how true this is, 

137 



but think it would be an advantage, from my 
experience of the weather over there. 

I have seen a countryman come into town 
in a pouring rain, leave his horse standing for 
hours^ come out to get into the water-soaked 
saddle, and with his hand brush off the drops, 
calmly jump into his seat and ride twelve miles 
to his home, as if it were a perfect day. 

We were T\T.*apped in all the clothes we could 
manage to put on, and sat under umbrellas, 
and tried very hard to enjoy the rain and snow, 
mixed with low hills, and high hills, and val- 
levs and S'oro-es. Onlv one thins; really com- 
forted us, and that was the assurance that the 
fine scenery was to be seen the second day, and 
we hoped the sun would then be shining. 

At four o'clock we had a little rest, and 
really enjoyed the Scotch scenery of Craigie 
Burn, where we stopped for the inevitable 
scons and tea, and a good toasting by a great 
open wood fire. This was the first time I had 
had hot scons, and right here. I want to ease 
my conscience and tell the friends that "scons" 
are simply cold baking-powder biscttit ! I have 
often spoken of scons in a very lofty and su- 
perior manner, and now "^the murder is out.^' 
They are just cold biscuits, that is all. An- 
other confession I will make while I am about 
it is that "pikelets,^^ which are served cold, 

138 



witli butter — are only cold batter-cakes ! Think 
of a plate of cold batter-cakes passed around 
at an afternoon tea! Yet these people always 
say: Fancy yon Americans, eating hot bis- 
cuit and batter-cakes! How indigestible!^^ It 
is all a mere matter of education, I suppose. 

After 'we had eaten our scons and drunk our 
tea;, and were warmed and refreshed, a relay 
of six fresh horses were put to the coach, and 
Ave were off asrain for ^'The Bealev'' — the hotel 
we hoped to reach by seA^en o'clock, and where 
we were to stay all night. AVe were there on 
time, and found a hot dinner and wood hres in 
great, old-fashioned fire-places, and enjoyed 
both, after a ride of fifty-four miles in the cold 
and wet. 

The next morning dawned fair and bright, 
and after an early breakfast, we climbed into 
our high seats, fully expecting to enjoy the 
day, as the finest scenery was between "The 
Bealey'^ and Otira. Between seven and eleven 
o'clock we crossed Arthur's Pass, which divides 
■Canterbury from the Westland, and then the 
wonderful view opened to our e^^es! Mountains, 
five thousand and ten thousand feet high, snow- 
capped, and the sides covered with the ever- 
lasting dark-green foliage to the very base, met 
our eyes at every turn in the road. The snow- 
capped mountains;, precipices of great heights, 

139 




^3 



tS3 







'«3 

o 



■tq 



!3 



4; 



with cascades, feeding glaciers, canons and ra- 
vines, biish-clad valle3"s, shelving coasts, flax- 
fields — 'all made an ever-changing panorama of 
great interest. 

The dark-green foliage gets tiresome in its 
sameness, for it is the same the year round. 
Ko delicate spring greens and antiimn color- 
ing like onr eyes are accustomed to look at, at 
home, luit frigid, unchangeable — owing to its 
being mostly evergreen. The trees on these 
slopes' are covered ^-^-ith heavy gre}^ and green 
moss, and look like the}^ had just been up- 
holstered in green plush. This is springtime 
here, and yet it had no sign of spring, as we 
know the season. In fact, to be frank, the 
scenery cannot compare with that of our White 
Mountains in color, nor with that of Colorado 
in grandeur. Things are on a small scale here, 
but are condensed, and one can see a great 
many kinds of landscape in a short time. The 
whole of Xew Zealand is about the size of Cali- 
fornia, so you can imagine how packed with, in- 
terest and beauty the country is. 

At Otira, which we reached about noon of 
the second day, we had more tea and scons, and 
the best gooseberry jam I ever tasted. After 
an hour's rest, we started for the gold fields on 
the west coast, at Kumara, over the ranges. 
This drive of forty-five miles from Otira to 

1-12 



Kumara was through the virgin hush^ or forest, 
as we would ssij, and though the trees were 
much the same as we had seen on the hills, on 
our way over, we saw them nearer and they 
seemed lar2:er. There was the red and white 
pine, totara,, hlack and red birch, tree fern, 
cabbage tree and rata., with vines weaving in 
and out of the branches, uniting trees and 
bushes with garlands of delicate green, making 
an almost impenetrable forest. The rata is a 
very interesting and curious tree, and there is 
nothing like it anywhere else in the world, I 
believe. The wind carries the seed of the rata 
vine into a fork of some tree. It takes root 
there and sends shoots do^vn to the earth, 
where they fasten themselves. Then the wind 
blows them against each other, and against the 
tree, and they are grafted into it, and grow into 
it, mnding their shoots around and around the 
tree. In years they become the tree itself, the 
original having been killed in the meantime. 
These trees are very large and very old, and 
are the most noticeable and picturesque of all 
the trees I saw. 

At three o'clock, the afternoon of the 20th, 
we rolled into the main street of Kumara. We 
had ridden ninet3^-nine miles, and were very 
weary, and hungr}^, and fond of Chicago. West- 
land, as this district is called, is all gold and 

143 




rS 



1^ 



s 

o 

S 




80 



.^ 






o 



o 



coal mines, and is as isolated from tlie rest of 
the island as if it 'were in another conntry. It 
is almost absolutely cnt off from the rest of the 
land by ice-fed rivers, precipitous mountains 
find its long, harborless coast. There is no 
such thing as luxurious travel in these parts, 
and one is appalled at the many discomforts 
and perils of expeditions to this coast. Too 
much rain, bridgeless rivers, dripping bush, 
make every trip dangerous. There is a coach 
twice a week, if the rivers are not too swollen 
to be forded, otherwise there is no way out, ex- 
cept by sea, and a very long way round. Often, 
for many days at a time, the ships cannot come 
over the bars to the wharfs, and though in 
plain sight of the harbor, no one can land, and 
no ship can venture out. It gives one a lonely 
feeling to be so helpless as to transportation, 
and I was relieved when we reached the north 
island again, and could look out into the open 
sea, northward — toward home. 

XIY 

At. Sea. S. S. Manipouri. Jan. 15. 1905. 

IT rained all forenoon. A New Zealander 
would not have called it a rainy day. He 
would have said, "Oh, well, it is a bit 
showery." It certainly was all of that. 

W-fe were to sail at noon. By 10 o'clock I 
146 



had our goods, wares and raercliandise safely 
stowed for the voyage. At a quarter past ten 
I was addressing the general asserahly of the 
Presbyterian Churchy now in session in St. An- 
drews. At 11 that splendid body of men were 
cheering me, homeward bound. At 12 the ship 
did not sail, but the hour to cast off was set 
for 2 o'clock. 

At 3 the engines started, and the "Maniponri'^ 
of the Union Steamship Company of Xew Zea- 
land twenty-three hundred tons register, 
turned her fine bow towards the heads of Auck- 
land harbor, due in five days at .iSTukualofa, in 
the Friendly Islands, the capital of Tongatabu, 
and the home of King George, Second, the only 
reigning king in Polynesia. 

'The sky cleared as we left the wharf and 
Auckland harbor was a perfect dream of beauty, 
as the panting little ocean grey-hound nosed 
her wav amono; the islands, frettins; for the 
open sea; and nov.^, as T begin this letter, we 
are under the lea. of the Little Barrier, with 
the Great Barrier on our ris^ht, loomins; lono- 
and gray, and the sun like a celestial bomb, is 
tearing the whole western slr}^> to tatters of un- 
speakable beauty. The compass shows our 
course to be north, north-east, and the "Mani- 
pouri'^ is fairly leaping before the fair wind. 



147 



bound for the coral reefs and eaves of Tonga, 
eleven hundred miles away. 

Our hearts are tugging many ways. Gracious, 
lovely, sturdy New Zealand hangs to us like a 




Corner of a Maori whare. 

chain of its own coromandel gold. We may sail 
to the end of the world, but we shall never get 
away from it. Dunedin, Christchurch, Welling- 

148 



ton^ and Auckland, are written on our very 
souls and ineflt'aceable. 

It is the rainy season in the islaiids, and the 
tourist traffic is at a standstill. We have this 
ship almost to ourselves. We have a bride- 
elect in our care, going to Nukualofa to meet 
her sweet-heart and be married on our arrival 
there next Sunday. Then there is a missionary 
with his wife and baby, and three men. 

The ship is beautifully clean, although not 
new. The food is excellent, and the service all 
that could be desired. The sea is as smooch iis 
a pond, although the south-west monsoon is 
blowing. To-morrow we shall cross (he 180th 
meridian and be in West longituciC, rccrossing 
on our way to Fiji, some three weeks hence. 

Our second tour of New Zealaud has con- 
firmed ever}^ good opinion formed in our foruier 
visit. W^e have been in every nook and corner 
of the colony, have seen its home life from the 
highest to the lowliest and become familiar 
with its thought and work, from the parliament 
house to the tents of the navvies on the iwav 
railway lines. 

Considering its age — about half a century — 
it is a beautiful country. The poDulation is re- 
ligious, intelligent, industrious and British to 
the core. The country is suffering from ovor- 
prosperity. The process of freezing beef and 

149 



mutton and butter for shipment lias made Nev' 
Zeaiand one vast meat market for the British 
Islands, and made povert}^ unknown. The first 
generation of farmers got the land ver}^ cheap 
and joined farm to fann, until they had vast: 
holdings; sheep multiplied on the cheap ami 
plentiful pasturage, but there was no marlvot 
for them.' Then came the discovery that the 
dressed carcasses could be frozen and laid down 
upon the butchers^ blocks of London as fi'osh 
as the day they were slaughtered. The sheep 
growers stepped at once from land poverty and 
sheep poverty to riches. Dairying, too, sprung 
into great importance. There is, so far as gras^- 
gTOwing is concerned, but one season in Xew 
Zealand, and when the problem of a market for 
wool and meat and butter and cheese was solve:! 
bv the installation of freezins^ works the colonv 
began at once to roll in ready money. Ships 
multiplied in the 'New Zealand trade, of course. 
The ports got busy and a high protective tarifT 
did the rest. 

Meanwhile immigration kept up steadily and 
every immigrant wanted land. He came from 
the northern countr}^, where rents were high, 
and the freehold all but unpurchasable. He 
was ready to pay extravagant prices, and the 
land owners accompanied him. The result has 
been a land boom of tremendous jiroportions, 

151 




A. Maori girl. 



but without the boom penalties^ for the pur- 
chasers were greedy for work as well as huui, 
and even at the shocking prices that they paid, 
were able to make good, and the boom con- 
tinued and still continues^ the government be- 
ing ready at all times to furnish cheap money 
to worthy settlers. 

So the Switzerland of the Pacific got rich^ and 
is getting richer, and steering straight for 
trouble. 

There is no poverty, but there is an absoli,lo 
despotism of poverty legislation. While ihe 
farmers and merchants have been piling uj. 
their bank accounts and adding field to field 
and flock to flock, the labor agitator has built 
up a political machine which now defies con- 
trol and laughs at counsel. 

JSTot all of this class legislation is bad. Some 
of it, much of it, is good, but the spirit it has 
engendered in politics is saturated with selfish- 
ness and scorns the very name of fair play. 
The selfishness of capital is doubtless quite as 
bad as that of labor, but it is no worse, and 
less repuliive. IsTobody in 'New Zealand has 
any rights that organized labor feels itself 
bound to respect. Maids of all work are costl}^ 
or impossible luxuries, and handy men are 
rare. Thus a bitter feeling is growing between 
employer and employee, which in the near fu- 

153 




A Maori girl. 



tiire will make trouble in the wonderful litile 
reform country. 

If nothing worse were happening than the 
gathering of a conflict between two classes of 
citizens, there ayouM be less to fear. But the 
worst is that this aggressive and dominant sel- 
fishness of labor leaders has corrupted the gov- 
ernment under which it has groMai to its pres- 
ent ominous proportions. So that whax p':isse3 
for statesmanship^ in both government and op- 
position at present, is the merest and boldest 
playing for safety on the one hand, and for an 
opening on the other. The honesty of the 
ministry is generally doubted and often openly 
questioned. The premier is kept fairly busy de- 
fending himself against charges of personal 
corruption, and the prevalent impression seems 
to be that he gets himself acquitted by his tre- 
mendous cleverness in avoiding trial on the 
merits. He has risen from being the kee]Der of 
a small gin mill on the west coast to oe prime 
minister of this colon}' — and in some respects 
a very able prime minister, but he has brought 
along with him to the mountain top the slip- 
pery locomotion of the ooze froui v/hich he 
started. He has surrounded himself ^^'ith par- 
liamentary sm.all fry to Avork the portfolios at 
his AAull. While he has actually learned to play 



155 



patriotic airs on the bass string of the colonial 
life. 

This present nnfortnnate condition is cer- 
tainly only temporary. New Zealand, as 1 have 
said, is a Christian country, and while the mad 
race for wealth and power has baen going on, 
the pastors have worked JLcuthiiilly, teaching 
the old ideals, biding iheii time. 



XV. 

Vavau, Friendly Islands, Nov. 22, 1905. 

ELEVEN hundred miles north-east of 
Auckland, as the bird flies, in about 175 
degrees west longitude, and about 20 de- 
grees south latitude, the Friendly Islands lie. 
There are about a hundred of them, big and 
little, assembled in three groups, called re- 
spectively Tongatabu, Taapai arid Vavau, Wav- 
ing thick with feathery palm trees and to 
northern eyes giving at a distance, low, lying 
at the surface of the ocean, a sense of mystery 
and unreality, like what remains of scenic 
dreams, on waking. 

The first land sighted after leaving the New 
Zealand coast is the island of Pylstaart, where, 
as late as 1891, a ship put in and anchored, and 
the curious natives flocked about it in their 
canoes, let down its ladders, which soon 

156 




o 



^ 
e 
o 



1^ 



swarmed witli trustful browu men, coming 
over the side, on the suave captain's invitation. 
The hatches were standing open, and be- 
low were spread upon • the ship's bottom, 
beads and mirrors, and guns and gaudy-colored 
cloth and fishing tackle, and when the natives 
had feasted their eyes on the tempting objects 
thus displayed, they were told to descend and 
help themselves each one to a present from the 
captain. They were not slow to go, and while 
they chattered over the tinsel glories in the 
hold, the hatches were clapped shut and the 
slave-ship sailed away to South America and 
sold them. Only the chief refused to take the 
bait and plunged overboard and swam un- 
touched amid a shower of bullets, to the land. 
The enormity of such a crime can only be rea- 
lized, and then only a little, by those who 
know from personal contact what gentle- 
hearted home-lovers and kindred-lovers these 
Polynesians are. 

About eight hours sail from Polystaat lies 
Nukualofa, the capitol of Tonga (which is the 
short name of the Friendly Islands), a pretty 
little town loitering along the beach without 
regularity or form and far too modern for its 
setting in groves of cocoa palms, oleanders, hy- 
biscus and brilliant coleas. 

To see the Tongan native life, one must pass 
158 



beyond the town into the villages at the back, 
and on the shore remote from the harbor. 
The native is at his worst on the wharf. 

The approaches to these islands are through 
breaks in the coral reefs^ which enclose them 
every onei. It is rarely safe to make one of 
these ports at night. The coral is deadly for 
ships^ bottoms^ and it is everywhere. Day or 
night, the larger reefs are marked by lines of 
snrf, combed into white spray breaking above 
them as the swells of the deep sea pass over, 
and when the sun is shining, the presence of 
the deeper reefs are clearly shown by the color 
of the water. To my mind, nothing is more 
beautiful in nature than the flat sea scenery of 
coral reefs. I shall write of this again, later. 

We arrived at ISTukualofa on Sunday morning 
and remained two days. The crowd of natives 
which gathered on the wharf to receive us was 
pleasing by the absence for the most part of 
civilized dress. There were few women and 
children, for it was Sunday and the hour was 
early. But the men were magnificent speci- 
mens of physical development, tall straight, 
strong-limbed, brown-skinned, black-haired, 
stately in movement, soft-voiced and cheerful. 
Save here and there a short-sleeved Yankee 
undershirt, the lava-lava or breech cloth, was 
the only garment in evidence. 

159 




o 



e 

e 
^ 



^ 



Mrs. Woolley and I slipped away immediate- 
ly after breakfast to explore. We plunged at 
once into the bush in search of unspoiled na- 
tive life, not even pausing to. inspect the king's 
palace — a stifP, white verandahed, sunmier-re- 
sort-looking dwelling, enclosed in a large 
square, with a fence of squared blocks of coral 
and huge gates, partly off their hinges, with 
the king's chapel near, in the same enclosure. 

We were diverted from our purpose, how- 
ever, by the streams of natives coming out of 
their villages to the church, which stood on 
the highest point on the island. Following the 
crowd, we found ourselves presently in the 
premieres pew on a dias, near the high pulpit, 
in the Wiesleyan Church of Tongatabu. The 
building was a study in sacred architecture, 
oval in shape, and thatched in the most pic- 
turesque way. The roof, or thatch, is support- 
ed on a scaffolding of unsawn, unhewn beams, 
in turn supported on two rows of solid tree 
trunks of large size, denuded of their bark, 
running the entire length of the house. N'o 
nails, nor any metals are used in the construc- 
tion, the parts being lashed together with cords 
of various colored sinnet (twine plaited by 
hand) of the fiber of cocoanut husks, and wrap- 
ped about the joints of the timbers in such a 



161 



way as to make handsome capitals of various 
geometrical designs and many colors. 

Unfortunately church quarrels follow the 
flag of missions, and set even these affectionate 
people hy the ears. A bad split in the Wesleyan 
Church of Tonga has for its monument a splen- 
did "Union" Church, farther back from the sea, 
upon a lesser eminence. So. the Protestaant 
forces and resources are divided, while the 
Marists fathers push the solid Church of Rome 
hard by. 

We went to the Union Church in the evening. 
The congregations were of splendid appearance ; 
quietness, cleanliness and grave solemnity 
marked them both. The people, the adults, 
wore clothes, m^ostly; the men two garments, 
the lava-lava, surmounted by a short jacket of 
drill, with, in rare cases, an undershirt. The 
premier wore a full white drill suit, but was 
bare-footed. The women, as a rule, wore the 
lava-lava and a Mother Hubbard gown of color- 
ed calico, and a hat from London or Chicago. 
Here and there in the crowd could be seen a 
native man or woman in native costume, as of 
course, were all the children. 

The singing was in the nature of a revela- 
tion. There are. for instance, five choirs in the 
Union Church; that is to say, parties of friends 
that practice singing together. The competi- 

16S 




Si 






(a 







o 



Jr. 



tion is strenuoiis^ but good-natured. And how 
they shig! Each choir sang a hymn or an 
anthem^ and if it had been a prize competition, 
it wonkl not have been easy to award the palm. 
There is no instrument of any kind, no organ^, 
tuning fork or pitch pipe. The leader raises 
the tune in just two or three notes alone, then 
the rest come in, like the breaking of a reser- 
voir of song. As nearly as one can judge by 
hearing them altogether, some of the individual 
voices seem to be of great beauty and power, 
but how they might sound in solo parts nobody 
can find out, for the}^ scorn to sing solos. A 
ma2:nificent basso in one of the choirs is often 
begged by visitors to sing alone, but he says: 
"What I do that for, that not music ?^' The 
choruses would number, I should say, one hun- 
dred voices each. The}?" keep well nigh perfect 
tune and time, and altoo-ether I have heard no 
choral singing equal to it, save in Wales, and 
there (in Wales), the choirs had all the aids of 
organs, conductors, etc. 

There is a college in .Nukualofa, but the na- 
tives refuse to study anything but music and 
short-hand. A college where the pupils fix the 
curiculum to suit themselves would make a 
strong bid for patronage in any country. 

All day Sunday the ship swung silent at the 
wharf. Two hundred tons of copra waited on 

165 



the landing to he put on board, bnt no native 
can he hired to work on Sunday. Service. 
Sunday school, and choir practice iill the day. 
Of course, these tropic islanders don't like to 
work at all, hut they can he got to, on week 
days. 

Monday, hy six o'clock in the morning, the 
steam winches were clattering, and fifty or 
siitv natives with a laugh and sono; were carrv- 
ing cargo to and from the hatchways. The 
weather was hot and the work was hard, hut 
these great-muscled, *'nerve''-less men did not 
seem to realize that they had been doing any- 
thing, or had anything yet to do. At the noon 
spell, they ate their handful of ships" beef and 
biscuit in ten minutes, with a cup of coiiee, and 
then danced and sung songs until the gong 
sounded. At five ©"clock, when the last load 
was shouldered to the deck, they gave their 
three cheers and had another dance. 

Early ]\Ionday morning we resumed our 
march upon the native villages. A'ery soon 
after we passed from the main street, we be- 
gan to hear the booming of the tapa mallets, 
beatins: out the native cloth on hollow losrs, 
smoothed for the purpose. "We went from house 
to house and sat with the old women who do 
that work, to watch them in the curious process. 
Strips of the inner bark of the mulberry tree 

166 



are placed in a vessel of water^ to be kept plia- 
ble. The old woman seats herself near it, be- 
side a smooth log, and with a heavy hard-wood 
mallet, beats one of the strips out thin and 
long, and broad as possible, then another and 
another, joins them edge to edge, and beats 
them on and on until she turns out a sheet of 
yellowish- white paper, or cloth, tough and plia- 
ble. Then, with dyes of her own gathering in 
the bush, she dyes the sheet in figures of her 
own designing. 

The tapa is the only native cloth, and serves 
a very useful as well as ornamental purpose in 
dress of men, women and children, and is also 
used for screening and dividing oif a part of 
the single roomed dwelling in case of need. 

The first requisite of Polynesian hospitality 
is a bowl of kava. I have written about it in 
former letters, but am sending with this an ex- 
cellent photograph of the process and elements 
in its kava-making. The bowl is cut out of 
solid block of hard-wood; the cups are polished 
half cocoanut shells ; the water bottles are whole 
cocoanut shells; the strainers are v»^isps of hi- 
biscus fiber; the grinders are a hollow stone, 
with another for a pestle. The kava is the root 
of a kind of pepper tree. The liquor is clean, 
wholesome, not unpleasant, and of course, free 
from alcohol or any poison. It is a chief's 

167 



drink; the common people do not drink it. 
The ceremony of making it is always the same^, 
and the most important function of South sea 
social life. 

We wandered like children^ full of the joy of 
mere existence^ glad to own and forced to own 
close kinship to these half-naked brown people, 
who looked so calmly into our faces, with their 
dark, quiet eyes, and greeted us with "Maliolei/^ 
(good life). There are few horses on the island 
and the roads are grassy. Tall palms incline 
their graceful trunks above our heads and 
whisper: "Want not, here is shade and food, 
and drink. '^ And the young cocoas, not yet ar- 
rived at fruit-bearino;, wave their enormous 
fronds about our heads — the most beautiful of 
trees. We lose ourselves in groves of bananas 
in full fruit. Hedges of citron trees line the 
paths, and oranges drop at our feet as we pass 
on. The flovv^ers are gorgeous ; most beautiful, 
perhaps, is the hibiscus, red, single and double. 
or yellow with a red stain at the heart. The 
morning glory riots everywhere. Chilli, or 
small red peppers, give their crimson color on 
every hand, the light green of a sugar-cane 
patch suddenly changes the color scheme, and 
yam vines and cotton trees abound. If there 
is anything more beautiful in its color or more 
soothing in its peacefulness, or more satisfying 

168 




Tofigan lananas. 



in its yield of sweet, soft-voiced welcomes to a 
stranger. I don't know where it is. 

By five o'clock the ship was loaded. We had 
to get beyond the reef .before the sun set, so as 
to have open sea during the night. Several of 
the residents came on board to say goodbye to 
friends who were embarking, or to send mes- 
sages to the other islands. 

At six o'clock we were under way, steering 
for the narrow opening in the reef. All about 
the island, varying from a few feet from the 
shore to a mile, the white surf marked the coral 
as with a long sun-lit snow drift, from which 
the cool sea breeze was blowing. The western 
sky was gorgeous with its masses of impossible 
coloring, and from the pier came the tine, deep, 
resonant chorus of the native labarers singing. 



XVI. 

Apia, Samoan Islands, Xov. 24, 1905. 
CEUISE in the Southern sea! The mere 
thought of it is delightful. Cruising is 
idling; it is rest; it is play; it is liberty 
everything that lets off strain. 



A 



Cruising is education in education's most 
charming aspect. These islands are little na- 
tions, miniature civilizations, that can be seen 
in seed, and bud^, and fruitage all together. 

170 




A. Tongan girl. 



How altruism. Trakens in savage wilds, liow 
tribes break up into families, how the hare, 
vice, skips in the front of progress, and loses 
by over-confidence in itself, while the tortoise 
virtue labors on, and wins by faith in God. 
These, and much else, not to be written in a 
hasty letter, show np in striking clearness as 
one sails and sees and dreams under the blue 
shine of tropic skies, and to the music of lap- 
ping waves on a ship^s side. 

I feel a pair of grey old temples throbbing 
with the inspiration of a post-fifty-graduate- 
course in the great elemental university, where 
the chemistry of world-making, and the pottery 
of man-making go on in fact, not theor}', before 
one's very eyes. I hear a grey old heart shout- 
ing for joy at being permitted to see the wheels 
of creation going round. 

Polynesia has been well called "The Milky 
Way of the Pacific,^^ and to traverse it, as we 
are doing, awakens something like the awe one 
feels on a clear night at home, gazing up into 
the celestial mysteries. Here long arcs of 
snowy spray, curling up and over the enormous 
plumes, show how the coral insects are connect- 
ing up archipelagoes into bigger islands or, 
maybe, continents, with their exquisite pink- 
white masonry. There, flames out against the 
night, a volcano, pouring its grist of lava down 

172 



on barren coral reefs — to become rich soil after 
some ages, waving with palm and vine. Now, 
the indescribable qniver of earthquakes goes 
through sea and shore, and wonder and worship 
and msdom thrill the docile soul. Here, on 
the shore, where our good ship makes fast for 
the night, a whole race of men lines up, clad in 
brown nakedness, and cocoanut oil, and every- 
thing from that to Manchester print and Amer- 
ican shoes. Yonder a native church, high- 
thatched, on trunks of trees, nailless and paint- 
less, lashed tight with ropes of cocoa fiber, 
thunders like an organ, with the glorious choral 
singing of a people as songful and light-hearted 
as the birds that gleam in green and yellow, 
black and white, and brown among the trees of 
candlenut and palm. 

Having cleared the coral reef while the sun 
was setting, we stood straight out to sea. and 
at daylight the next morning anchored off 
Haapai. There is no wharf, nor indeed any har- 
bor, save that which the coral insects have 
made, and so we anchored in the little bay of 
Pangai, some five hundred feet from shore, safe 
from the sea, but unprotected from the wind, 
and tliis was the hurricane season, the sea 
breaking over the outer reef in miles of snow- 
white "beach-combers" was magnificent and the 
day was perfect. 

173 



After breakfast, we went ashore in the ship^s 
boat, and while the winches were rattling at 
the cargo, looked about us. The island is called 
"Lefuka,/" the other two of the Haapai group 
being called "Fua'^ and "Haano/' 

King George, whose palace at Nukualofa was 
mentioned in my last letter, has a residence at 
Pangai also, where, being a native of the place, 
he prefers to live mostly. 

Lefuka is very much like ^N'ukualofa, but 
smaller and less spoiled by "^civilization.^" The 
natives met us at the beach and bade us wel- 
come, offering us pretty shells and bits of coral. 
Back in the bush we could hear the tapa mallets 
booming, and the songs of family worship ris- 
ing in rich melody. The picturesque thatched 
huts were very quiet otherwise. Nothing was 
doing at that hour, save that the old women 
were early at their tapa. Some families were 
still at prayers, and the crowd was on the beach 
watching the white men and their ship. 

In company with the captain of the ship, we 
set out far a walk across the island. It was not 
far to go. A quarter of an hour brought us to 
the reef on the opposite side. The beach was 
thick with curious shells and corals tempting, 
but of course impossible to be carried away, 
except a few souvenirs. AVe did gather a lot of 
them, and a native boy made us a pretty basket 

175 



of a single palm to carry them in. We took 
them to the ship, but later had to throw them 
overboard for lack of room. Beautiful things 
are so abundant here that we should need a 
ship all to ourselves, if we were to carry away 
all that we should like to, and that can be had 
for simply picking it up. 

When the sea is smooth, a trip over the sub- 
merged reef in a rowboat is a wonderful experi- 
ence. Leanino- over the srunwale one can look 

o O 

down into acres and leagues of coral groves, 
stone gardens and forests of exquisite shapes, 
and every possible color, and darting among the 
incredible beauties of the place fishes as many 
colored and as brilliant as the tropic blooms 
upon the shore. 

Our way across the island was through dense 
bush, where cocoa palms in every stage of 
growtji, bananas in full bearing, yams, sugar- 
cane, cotton, chillis, oranges, lemons, pineapples 
— everything — were growing, not exactly wild, 
but in a way that looked wild to us, accustomed 
to neater habits of cultivation. The fact is, 
that in these tropical regions things grow better 
in these wildernesses. Under such cleanly cul- 
tivation as we should give in Illinois, for in- 
stance, this vegetation would be parched and 
ruined by the sun. So, one always finds here, 
even where white men and corporations work 

176 



the land for the greatest profit, all the crops 
growing together, like a jungle. Of course, the 
natives care nothing about producing, large 
crops. There is always enough food. They 
care for little else. They eat what ihej require 
and leave the rest. The falling eocoanuts, to 
be sure, are opened, and the copra cut, oiit and 
dried and sold in vast quantities, but the money 
does not gi'eatly interest the producers. They 
frequently give it all to the church, and if not, 
their relatives and friends, who think, they need 
it, are welcome to it, as if it could be picked up 
in inexhaustible quantities upon the beach. 

At noon we weighed anchor and sailed for 
Vavau, the most northerly group of the Friendly 
Islands, and at sunset made :fast to the wharf 
at the exquisitely situated little town of TsTeifu. 

Tongatabu and Haapai are both coral groups, 
and therefore low — little above the sea-level — 
and at the mercy of. the hurricanes that are 
all too frequent in these latitudes. Vavau, on 
the other hand, is a coral group, which has been 
heaved up by volcanic action, so that the mount- 
ain tops are strewn with broken coral. 

The port of Ya^au is one of the finest in the 
world, perfectly land-locked, very deep, and 
large enough to contain the navies of the world. 
The entrance is surprisingly beautiful, and 
more like the passage of an inland sound than 

177 



Si 




an ocean port of a South Sea island. The ap- 
proach is a winding course^ among oiit^lying 
islands^ passing which we come to a succession 
of bold cliffs, deep bays, wooded headlands and 
beaches of yellow sand, with open, grassy inter- 
vals, and groves of palms and bananas running 
down to orange groves and citron groves at the 
shore, and back of all, a spine of jagged vol- 
canic hill tops, not over two thousand feet high, 
but very curiously formed. 

We remained on board until morning, and 
at 6 o^clock, the captain and I, each with a 
pocket full of apples, started for an ascent of 
Talau, the highest mountain, standing about a 
mile inland. 

The path Avound up through native villages 
and tangles of hibiscus and frangipani. At al- 
most any point of the journey Ave could have 
helped ourselves to oranges, dead ripe and 
luscious, and we did carr}^ some green cocoa- 
nuts to the top for drinking purposes. It Avas 
a hard climb, but we made it in a little over an 
hour, and Avere richly paid for our labor, in the 
scene which lay about us. The mountain seemed 
itself an island, so far inshore, the Avinding 
fiords extended on the landAvard side. Seaward, 
the view was like enchantment. The tide was 
low, and tlie thousands of acres of reef were 
scarcely covered, though the depth varied, of 

179 



course. The sun was rising high in the east 
and the different depths of water over the many- 
colored reef, patched the sea into streaks and 
masses, and touches of color/ such as one sees 
in the sky sometimes in September sunsets at 
home. These against the yellow beaches, the 
gray cliffs, everything in bloom and foliage, 
and the blue-black of the far sea line, made a 
picture which beggars description and defies 
comparison. We sat upon the top-most rock, 
and in the sweet, cool milk of our cocoanuts, 
drank silently to the transcendent beauty of 
Vavau. 

We were back at the ship in time for break- 
fast at 8:30, and at 11 sailed for German 
Samoa 350 miles due north. 

rive miles down the bay from l^eiafu, the 
ship stopped, and we were given a crew, in 
charge of the second officer, to row us to the 
wonderful cave in the face of a cliff. We en- 
tered a narrow cleft, just wide enough for the 
boat, and found ourselves in a great natural ca- 
thedral of noble dimensions, lighted by the re- 
flection from the sea, and by a small opening 
at the top. The light was soft, as if it came 
through the most beautiful stained glass; the 
great dome swept up. on giant pillars and but- 
tresses, creating gothic arches, hung with 
glistening stalactites, and colored with amaz- 

180 



ing natural fresooe work, doubtless the effect 
of minerals deliquescing^ through centuries. 
The bottom of the cave was plainly visible, and 
was strewn "with masterpieces of coral building. 
Near the center of the entrance chamber a high 
stalagmite stands alone, projected upward from 
the mother rock above the water surf ac^e. This, 
on being struck with the butt end of an oar, 
gave out a tolling, bell-like roar, and went 
sweeping out over the sea to the ship and be^ 
yond, like the long moan of a signal buoy upon 
a dangerous coast. 

The dome was thick with bats which, start- 
led by our entrance, swarmed above us. Happing 
mutely and hideously. 

We were back on board in time for lunch. 

And now, with a long stretch of sea ahead, I 
have time to think a little. Seeing these people 
and these islands, gives me very mixed emo- 
tions. My first experience among tiiem w^o an- 
qualifiedly delightful. Such simple living, such 
natural courtesy, such lavish hospitaiit}^, such 
boundless liberty, such immunity from care, 
such innocence according to their lights, such 
physical beauty, such quiet joy of existence, 
gave me a sense of unmixed pleasure. But on 
more familiar knowledge of these scenes, I real- 
ize what "blessed god-mothers'^ are care and 
toil and rigorous climate. 

181 



These people have everything. If they are 
hungry^ they pick a pine-apple,, or a banana, or 
a mango^ and eat. If they are thirsty, they pick 
a young cocoanut and drink the milk, which is 
always cool and sweet, and abundant. If they 
are too warm, they go into the sea and lie down 
and get cool. If they are cold, they lie down on 
the sand in the sun under a piece of tapa cloth 
and get warm. If they feel like going to bed, 
they lie down on the fern and sleep. If they 
don't feel like getting up in the morning, they 
lie still. If they see a baby that they like bet- 
ter than their own, they ask for it, and they 
are not refused. If they have an enemy they 
kill him, or get killed by him. If they weary 
of their wives, they send them home and get 
others. FaithfiU missionaries are trying to' 
change what is bad among these customs, and 
with more or less success. 

But it is a soil in which hope cannot grow, 
things are too easy, too present, too temporary. 
Hope grows in lacks and hardships, and ne- 
cessities. The Polynesian is a striking illustra- 
tion of what a poor thing mere sensuous life is. 
Character is like a persimmon; it needs frost 
to make it fit. 

To want something and have to scheme and 
wait and labor to get it; to stick to a bad bar- 
bain; to brace up against disappointments; 

182 



these and such are the frosts that bite the 
greenness and the pucker out of life and make 
it bread of other life. 

The islander is the easy victim of any rogue 
that goes against him with "white" rascality. 
He does not grow. He does not thrive on 
difficulties. This is the saddest thing to be seen 
in the islands — the helplessness of the natives 
in contact with '^'civilization." They go to 
pieces with the stress of competition. They 
cannot stay and wait and work. They have no 
future, only the present. 

Property ideas, also have to have frost too, 
to make men appreciate the mine from the 
thine. 

Tonga is the only remaining kingdom in Poly- 
nesia. British protectorates are in force n all 
the islands nearby — and practically also in 
Tonga. And British rule is good rule, generally. 
Nothing is perfect in this world, but the best 
civilizer by and large upon this planet is British 
law. 

XYII. 

Suva, Fiji Islands, N'ov. 28, 1905. 

BOUG-AINVILLE, the discoverer of the Sa- 
moan group, named it the N'avigator 
Islands, from the fact that he saw the 
natives sailing their canoes far out at sea. And 

183 



the people of these seas are certainly wonderful 
navigators, as one can realize by looking, at the 
map and reflecting that .probably all of thv3 
islands, from Hawaii to Taihiti, and from them, 
westward, were settled by Bata^Tian sailors in 
dug-out canoes. , „ . ;. 

Upolu and Tutuila, the largest two islands of 
Samoa, are eighty miles apart, but it is not an, 
uncommon thing, for a family or a party of 
friends to make the trip in a boat no bigger 
than those which one can hire in the lagoon^, 
of the parks in Chicago. Too often it happens, 
that such a crew, that set out singing on such a . 
journey, is never heard , of again.. Stories, of 
such tragedies are common here. But they, seem 
not to deter anybody from going when the im-. 
pulse comees to make a visit to another island. 

Dr. Imhoff, the German judge of the court at,. 
Apia,, told me that his regular circuits of the 
islands, holding court, are all made in an open 
boat jWith native rowers. He ,said that at, first 
it seemed a frightful peril, but he had grown 
to such admiration of the seamanship ot his 
crew that he now had lost all fear. Of course, 
not all the voyagers that are lost to their 
friends, are lost in fact. Doubtless many, if 
not most of the Pacific islands, were populated 
by such parties that had been swept thither 
and cast up by storms. There are legends which 

184 



clearly show such origins of Polynesian settle- 
ments, and,, at. any rat e^ the intrinsic evidence, 
in. the language, manners and appearance of the 
islanders: themselves, of a comimon origin, what- 
ever admixtures may have entered in, in eourse 
of ages, is very convincing. 

American Samoa consists of the islands of 
Tutuila and Manua, together with some other 
vexy small islands. I have written of it pretty 
fully i in former letters. 

G-erman Samoa, which we have just now been 
visiting, consists of the largest two islands of 
the group— Upolu and Savaii. ,The latter is 
just now the scene of a splendid volcano, which 
furnishes trenaendous scenery on sky and sea 
and land, and sends the indescribable shiver of 
earthquakes almost daily through the gToup. 
We passed within a few, miles of it, and as it 
happened, we were in, Tutuila some eightnionths 
ago, when a tidal wave came rushing in on a 
calm clear evening, telling of some seismic out- 
burst far away. 

We anchored in Apia bay late in the after- 
noon of g. glorious day, ,with a strong north- 
east trade mnd blowing. There is no proper 
harbor at Apia,,r,only low reefs of coral mth a, 
wide roadstead, through which a southerly 
wind can play havoc. No matter how fair the 
day may be, if the vrind shifts to southward, 

185 



every ship heaves anchor and runs out into the 
open sea for fear of being swept to wreck and 
rui n on the coral that lines the shore. Sorrow- 
ful tokens of the perils of such a place of refuge 
lie bleaching on the inner reef today. 

The ship^s course from Tonga to Apia is 
around the eastern end of IJpolUj and in leav- 
ing Upolu for Fiji, around the western end, so 
that we got an excellent view of all the bold 
and exquisite scenery of Upolu, and much also 
of Savaii. In rounding the eastern end of 
Upolu, we passed close to two most curious and 
beautiful island rocks, evidently half-craters of 
small volcanoes, long extinct. One is called 
"Xuutele,'^ and the other "Xuulua." 

From the deck of our ship we could get good 
views also of the rugged mountain scenery of 
the interior, but where everything is so beauti- 
ful, it is impossible to describe. 

Apia harbor, in my judgment, is no more 
comparable to that of Pago Pago for beauty 
than for security, but it is beautiful certainly. 
It is crescent-shaped, and from Mulinuu on the 
west to Matautu on the east, about two miles 
wide. It is a maze of coral, cruel as death to 
ships^ bottoms, but with enough deep water be- 
tween reefs to give room for the largest ships. 

At any rate, the view of the island from the 
harbor is unsurpassable. The chief street runs 

18G 



round the crescent beach from Matantn point, 
near which the American consulate is situated, 
to Mnlinnu, the home of the old king, Mataafa, 
deposed now and pensioned by the G-erman gov- 
ernment. Backward and upward from the street 
the land rises in cocoanut groves, breadfruit 
and banana plantations, and endless blooms of 




SVManning 8Y M O A JunOT 

all the precious things we keep in hot-houses 
in America, shading and embowering multi- 
tudes of native houses, like those of Tonga, 
only far better in every way — ^cleaner, larger, 
airier and wider open on every side, and again 
back and upward, the scene extends to mount- 
ain ranges three to four thousand feet high, 

187 



covered to the summits with waving trees and 
shining here and there with waterfalls, and 
shaded with deep gorges, until they lose them- 
selves in cloud masses, floating in evening 
splendor over all. 

Against the mountain, half way up the first of 
the foot-hills, the white walls of Yailima, the 
home of Eohert Louis Stevenson, gleam in the 
sunlight, and farther up on the top of the first 
low range — at his own request — they nave made 
his grave. 

We remained on board for a Ions; time after 
our arrival, watching our n?ctive passengers dis- 
embark. Throughout the Tongan islands we 
have been picking up native voyagers going to 
visit friends in Apia. In fact, by the time we 
left Yavau our deck was filled with them. They 
carried their mats and kits of yams and cocoa- 
nuts, and ate and slept and lived on deoM,, a^ 
cheerful as so many birds. It ;vas impossible 
to walk on deck without great care, lest we 
should tread on little, brown, unwinking babies, 
sprawling on their pretty mats as naked as the 
day they were born; handsome women and 
girls, taking siestas at all hours of tlie day, 
precisely as they felt inclined, or stalwart 
chiefs, alike disposed. At night they all had 
prayers. It was curious to see and hear the two 
camps into which the worshipers fell, conduet- 

188 



ing the evening devotions, the Protestants sing- 
ing their lusty choruses and then bowing in 
quiet, but fervent prayer, led by one of their 
number and then another; and the Catholics^ 
wierd chanting, far less attractive to listeners, 
but equally earnest in manner. They would 
have kept it up far into the night had not the 
chief officer forbidden any singing on deck 
after 10 o'clock. 

When we arrived at Apia, the ship was im- 
mediately surrounded by native boats, and the 
delight of the boatmen at meeting the visiting 
natives, or those returning home from visiting, 
was plain to see, although the greetings were 
very quiet. Messengers were dispatched to 
notify relatives and friends on shore of the ar- 
rival of their visitors, or the members of their 
families returning. Very soon other boats put 
off to wait their turn at the ship's ladder. 

The most distinguished of the native pas- 
sengers was the aunt of the King of Tonga, 
with her retinue of thirty servants, thirty pigs 
for presents, and baskets and mats too numer- 
ous to be mentioned. A twelve-oared boat met 
her, trimmed with vines and flowers. 

There were several half-caste boys, just get- 
ting home from an eight or ten years' schooling 
in Auckland, well dressed, polite intelligent, 
and all sorts and conditions. 

189 



Next morning we set out immediately after 
breakfast to make a pilgrimage to the home 
and the burial place of Stevenson. Taking a 
trap with two horses and two natives — a fine 
old chief and his son — ^we drove to Vailim.a. 

Our way was through a lovely avenue of 
tropical trees, past rich plantations of cocoa., 
oranges, bananas, cocoanuts and all the rest. 
We both exclaimed at the beauty of it, and our 
pride in Tutuila, our own island and our first 
love among tropical islands, began to have a 
fall, for Apia is far more advanced and culti- 
vated than Pago Pago. 

On our way we stopped at Miss Armstrong's 
school to see the children of our friends. Judge 
Gurr and Fanua, of Pago Pago, and a hand- 
some little man and woman they are. We took 
a snap-shot of them and the school and hurried 
on, for we had a hard day's work ahead of us." 

We passed up the "Road of Gratitude,'" made 
for Stevenson by the chiefs whom he had be- 
friended, and whose opening was the occasion 
of a memoriable celebration at Yailima, and at 
10 o^clock were at the house that the great mas- 
ter of English prose had built, almost with his 
own hands — enlarged now by its new owner, a 
German millionaire. We gathered fiowers from 
the shrubs that he had planted, ate aligator 
pears and oranges from his trees, and entered at 

191 



?5 









S5- 



S5 




once and fully into the spirit of the time and 
place. 

We left our team at Yailima^ and on foot 
climbed the almost impossible hill to where in 
a wilderness of wild vines and hibiscus blos- 
soms, his beloved chiefs laid "Tusitala^^ to rest 
until the judgment day. 

It was a terrible climb for two elderly people. 
The hill is very steep^ almost precipitous in 
places. The path, cut by the natives to the 
sunmiit, has grown over largely. Trees have 
fallen across it, and the earth has quite slipped 
away in places. It was only by the most de- 
termined and persistent labor that we reached 
the object of our journey. Again and again we 
had to lie dovna. and rest. Again and again we 
would gain only a few yards before having to 
give up and take breath again. 

However, shortly after noon we reached the 
top and threw ourselves on the gray concrete 
tomb, scarcely more alive than the bones be- 
neith it. 

The place is fast returning to wilderness. If 
Stevenson desired utter quiet, he has his wish. 
A splendid vista opens through the trees toward 
the harbor, through which Apia and the gor- 
geous coloring of the reefs fairly astound the 
sense, but it, too, is closing up with neglected 
bush. 

193 




:ic 



The tomb is severely plain, unornamented 
with anything, save two small emblems — a 
thistle, and a hibiscns flower, and two inscrip- 
tions — a passage from the Samoan translation 
of the Bible on one side of the tomb, and on 
the other this: 

1850. Eobert Lonis Stevenson. 1894. 
Under the wide and starry sky. 
Dig the grave and let me lie. 
Gladly did I live and gladly die; 

And I land me down with a will. 
This be the verse you grave for me; 
Here he lies where he longed to be. 
Home is the sailor, home from the sea. 

And the hnnter home from the hill. 

Descent is easier. We came down from the 
mountain top and returned to the ship for a 
bath and a rest, and late in the afternoon visited 
the chief of Apia — ^Senmanatafa, son of that 
Seumanatafa who, on those awful days, the 
16th and 17th of March. 1889, when six men- 
of-war, then riding at anchor in Apia bay, went 
to pieces on the reef in a hurricane, led his peo- 
ple with most noble and indefatigable daring 
to the rescue of friend and foe, and who for 
that day^s work received a handsome boat and 
a gold watch and chain from the United States 

195 



government^ besides presents for those who 
lent a hand. 

Of the ships lost that da}^, three were Ameri- 
can — the Mpsicj the Yandalia, and the Tren- 
ton — and three were German^ the Adler, the 
Eber, and the Olga. The Calliope^ a British 
battle-ship, was saved by her captain driving 
her nnder full steam^ out from among the other 
disabled and breaking np^ past the reef and out 
to open sea^ in the teeth of the hurricane, to 
safety. 

Seumanatafa received us warmly as friends 
of her sister, Fanua, and Americans. At part- 
ing, he presented me with a great kava root, a 
royal gift, as Samoans count royal gifts. His 
wife — Ivaullaga — presented to Mrs. Woolley 
pieces of such tapa cloth as only nobles can give, 
and is quite unpurchasable at any price. Mean- 
while, we sat on the mats and ate delicious 
slices of pine apple, such as absolutely no mar- 
ket can supply, for pineapples, more than any 
fruit, deteriorates after it leaves its native pine. 

Wie called then on Judge Imhoff, the young 
German doctor of philosophy, from the Univer- 
sity of Mannheim,, whom we met on the steamer 
on our way to ISTew Zealand in April, when he 
was going to his post as judge of Apia. He 
carried us away to his house on the hillside for 
refreshments, and then for a drive until night- 

196 




2Q 



fall. He showed iis the home of King ^lataafa, 
the great war canoe of the Samoans. a huge 
catamaran decked over and accommodating 
fnlly a hundred men, housed now as a memento, 
for there is to be no more war in Samoa. He 
left us at the landing, where our boatmen were 
waiting to row us out to the ship. They pulled 
stoutly awav into the somewhat rough water 
sinsrin2[. "Good-bve mv Flennv. I never will for- 
get Tou." ^'Flenny/* it will be noticed, is Sa- 
moan for ''friend.'" 

We went to sleep that night in Apia bay with 
the songs of the natives coming to our ears from 
the shore. 

The next thing we knew, we heard the rat- 
tling of steam-winches and smelled the fumes 
of sun-dried copra. It was morning, and we 
were anchored at ^lulifanua. takins: car^o. 



XYIII. 

Sidney, X. S. W., Dec. 10. 1905. 

IX the history of moral degradation. Fiji prob- 
bly leads the world. In early days it was 
called '''The Hell of the Pacific."' Fp to 
1835, when two Wesley an missionaries took 
their lives in their hands and landed at Lakem- 
ba to preach the gospel, the darkest blot upon 
the earth was this group of 250 beautiful 

198 



islands. The people were polygaiiiists; they were 
infanticides; women were treated as inferiors; 
wives were killed when their hushands died and 
their bodies were nsed to line his grave and 
make it soft. The feeble old men and women 
were buried alive by their own children; they 
were cannibals; human sacrifices entered into 
all of their important undertakings; victims 
who were to be eaten were bound and placed 
alive in the ovens; theft and lying were univer- 
sal. When a chief launched a new canoe, the 
rollers on which it was made to slide down the 
shore into the water were living men. When 
the new canoe was ready for use, ten men were 
slaughtered in it, as a dedication ceremon}^ The 
gods of old Fiji were "the god of human 
slaughter/^ and the god "eater of human 
brains." This was the condition when Chris- 
tianity was introduced, and the facts are not 
exaggerated. As late as 1840 the United States 
exploring expedition, commanded by Comiuo- 
dore Wilkes, and including such men as Dana, 
Maury, and Pickering, gave corroboration to 
the ghastly stories of former travelers, whose 
records were disbelieved, because they bore such 
strong internal evidence of extravagance in 
statement. 

But Fiji has been redeemed by the foolish- 
ness of preaching. As late as the fifties, Tanoa, 

199 







o 



chief of Moan, would return from a successful 
war expedition with his canoes loaded with car- 
casses of his enemies for the table, and his 
yard-arms dangling with the bodies of 
slain infants he had exacted from their 
parents, that he might devour them. If 
human flesh ran low in the royal larder, the 
chief^s purveyors would hunt down his own 
people to supply it. When Tan oa*, died, his son 
and successor, Thakombau, who in his i^er life 
became a Christian, eloquent and apparently 
consistent and devout, began his reign with the 
ceremony of strangling his own mother with 
his own hands. 

By 1870 cannibalism had ceased, and the 
Fijians were a quiet, kindly people, strict ab- 
servers of the Sabbath, and very attentive to the 
ordinances of religion. 

This does not mean that these natives have 
become saints, but they have become Christians, 
and they average up as well in my opinion, as 
the general run in Europe or America. 

For this transformation the missionaries are 
responsible. They, and none else. And that, . 
in spite of the white traders and fugitives from 
justice.' The census of 1891 gave 100,000 na- 
tive inhabitants, of whom 90 per cent are \Yes- 
leyans, and 10 per cent Eoman Catholics. 
Practically all are professed Christians, gener- 

201 




:^ fe- 



oiis^ honesty hospitable and very observant of 
religions forms. 

In 1874, at the request of our native chiefs, 
Great Britain assumed the government of the 
islands as a cro^vn colon}', and at this time Fiji 
is rapidly coming to the front as a field for im- 
portant agricultural development. 

It is a fertile country, growing the very best 
bananas I have ever eaten, and pine-apples 
equal to those of any other place. Of course, 
the cocoanut is the staple crop in all tropical 
islands, and in that, Fiji is outstripped by 
none, while at present the sugar cane is rapidly 
taking prominence. Tea, peanuts, cotton and 
tobacco are exported also, but in no great quan- 
tities. 

The labor is done chiefly by Indian coolies, at 
a wage of about twenty-five cents a day. The 
Fijians do not like to work, and unfortunately 
for them, do not have to. 

We left Mulifanua on Saturday, the 25th of 
November, as the sun was going down. The 
volcano on Savali was lighting up the sky, and 
pouring its flood of lava toward the sea, not 
over twenty miles away. It broke out only a 
few months ago in a deep valley. It is now a 
mountain 4,000 feet high and growing. 

Sunday we passed several small islands, but 
did not stop at any. In the afternoon we ran 

203 



near the island of ^infau, to deliver the mail. 
It — ^the mail — was soldered up in a kerosene 
tin (all kerosene in this country is sold in five- 
gallon cans, square in form. These cans are 
used for everything — pailS;, packing boxes, 
floAver-pots,) and thrown into the sea, where a 
native was waiting to receive it and carry it 
ashore. The sea was very rough, and the cap- 




The mail for Niufau. 

tain supposed the native would not venture 
out, so he sailed as near the reef as he dareci — 
about half a mile off — and when he got just 
opposite the cliff on which we could plainly see 

204 



the entire population assembled, there, bobbing 
lip and down, like a burnt cork in the trough 
of the waves, was the black head of the mail 
carrier. When the can struck the water, he 
struck out for it into the wake of our ship, and 
it seemed as if he must be lost, but we saw him 
emerge from the tumbling waves and swim- 
ming in triumph to the shore. I was lucky 
enough to get a snap-shot at the chief officer, 
Mr. Benton, in the act of throwing the precious 
tin box overboard, and at the same time, the 
native in the water, waiting to receive it. 

Soon after leaving JTiuafou we began to see 
the crags of Fiji looming against the horizon, 
and steered for Levuka, the former capital of 
the archipelago, beautifully situated on the 
island of Ovalau, and at 9 o^clock we made 
fast to the w^harf there. Bright and early Mon- 
day morning, and before the others were stir- 
ring, we were tramping along the shore, through 
the native villages far from the ship, but as 
safe as we should have been in any village in 
America. 

The coral reef at Levuka is particularly 
beautiful. The harbor is a semi-circle, like 
Apia and the shore is far more rugged in its 
scenery. The reef lies between the deep blue 
water of the ba}'' and the blue-black ocean be- 
yond, like a veritable rain-bow, where the colors 

205 







^ 

o 



of the reef shine through the shallow water^, 
and the sun seems to break them up as by a 
prism. As the tide rises and falls, and as the 
wind ripples the water, and as some cloud 
masses cast their shadows as they pass, the 
colors change and the whole effect is simply 
marvelous. We entered a pretty house, next 
to the little Church of England, attracted by a 
photographer's sign displayed on the front. 
The artist was out, but a fine old gentleman 
greeted us most kindly and entered freely into 
conversation. We found him to be the rector 
of the church, who has been in Levuiiu. over 
thirty-five years and has built there the finest 
Church of Ensfland in Polvnesia. Afterward 
he came to call on us at the ship and say good- 
bye. 

As usual in these island towns, there is but 
one street in Levuka,, and that simply a path 
on the beach, but there are one or two up-to- 
date stores, and many small shops, bakers, 
butchers, saloons, etc. 

We left Levuka at midda}^, and at five o^clock 
were in Suva, the capital of Fiji, delightfully 
situated on the hillside and sloping down to a 
most charming bay, reef-bound, like the rest, 
and reef-glorified in color. The town has quite 
a modern air in the midst of the quaint native 
buildings and native ways. The government 

207 



house is quite an ambitious structure, and the 
stores and warehouses quite pretentious. 

At six, nine, twelve, three, six and nine 
©''clock, a huge native stands in the public 
square next the post-office, and heats the hour 
on a ^'lallr'' — an old dugout canoe turned up 
under a canopy to keep it dry. It rings loud 
and clear, and gives one a sense of very primi- 
tive conditions. 

Seumanatafa, our friend, chief of Apia, was 
a passenger on our ship, going to Suva to fetch 
back to Apia. ^Tau,'^ taupou of Apia, who was 
visiting relatives in Fiji. 

The first night we were in Suva, we were in- 
vted, Mrs. Woolley and L to spend the evening 
with Yau, at the home of her cousin, the na- 
tive Samoan missionary there. A native came 
to the ship to conduct us to the place, where 
Seumantafa and his sister and her attendants 
waited to receive us. We drank kava and en- 
joyed ourselves. Tau speaks very good English, 
and her brother, Seumanatafa. and her cousin, 
the missionary, speak it a little. Yau herself 
took us back to the ship. 

Thursday, Thanksgiving day, we were at 
Likuri, taking on bananas, and later, at Lutoka 
the great sugar mill — the next largest in the 
world. At Suva and Lutoka the ship filled up 
with passengers returning to Australia for the 

208 



holidays^, and comfort was at an end. Sick 
babies and well babies and bad babies in crowd- 
ed cabins, with sea-sick mothers, beery men, 




Vau, Taupon of Apia. 

reeking with tobacco, sneering at the mission- 
aries and the natives, all combined to put an 
end to the ideal days we had experienced np 

209 




o 

e 
c 

I 



' to that time. On the night of Thanksgiving 
day we put out to sea, bound for Sydney, 
eighteen hundred miles away. 

The trip was without any marked event, until 
the fifth of December. 

We had no wish to see a hurricane, having 
been in a terrific one on the Atlantic, but- we 
did hate to leave the South Pacific without see- 
ing a waterspout. We had almost begun to 
doubt if the marvelous pictures we used to see 
in the school geographies had not been pure 
fakes. But about twenty-four hours out of 
Sydney, we were sitting on decli watching the 
clouds idly, and thinking of nothing, when Mrs. 
Woolley said suddenly: "What a peculiar 
cloud! I looked and saw, about half a mile 
away, an irregular column descend from a mass 
of black clouds, which seemed to me about a 
mile high, until it touched the sea where it 
stood wirthing with the sea boiling at its base. 
At that nstant the captain came hastily from 
■ the bridge, bringing the ship^s glass, and said: 
"There is as fine a water-spout as 1 ever saw.'^ 

With the glass we could see plainly the 
water curling up the long tube, and the sight 
was almost incredible. In a few minutes it 
broke and fell. But just as we were turning 
away, wondering, another formed a little farther 
away, and altogether we had a good chance to 

211 



study this most astonishing performance of 
•the sea. 

Early on the 6th of December, one of the 
stewards came to my cabin and said: ^^The 
captain sent me to call yon. sir. to see the 
heads of Sydney harbor.'^ 




Loading hananas, Suva, Fiji. 

212 



XIX. 

On board S. S. Taiyuan, Dec. 20, 1905. 

WEDNESDAY, December 6th, at 5 p. m., 
the "Manapiirr^ steamed through the 
Heads into Sidney harbor, and the 
panorama, mth tlie rising snn ligiiting up the 
many suburbs on the hills on either side "beg- 
gars description.'^ They say the first question 
an Australian asks you is, "Have you seen Syd- 
ne}^ harbor? and I no longer wonder, for it is 
the most beautiful I have ever seen. Anthony 
Trollope wrote: "I despair of being able to 
convey to any reader my own idea of Sidney 
harbor. I have seen nothing to equal it in way 
of land-locked scenery — nothing second to it. 
It is so inexpressibly lovely that it makes a 
man ask himself whether it would not be worth 
his while to move his household goods to the 
eastern coast of Australia in order that he 
might look at it as long as he can look at any- 
thing. The sea runs up in various bays and 
coves, indenting the land all round the city, so 
as to give a thousand different aspects to the 
water, and not of water unbroken and unre- 
lieved, but of water always with jutting corners 
of land beyond it, and then again of water, and 
then again of land.^' 

The city of Sidney numbers half a million 
people, and is more like London than any place 

213 



I have ever visited. The streets, the shops, 
the people, all remind me of Engiand^s great 
city, on a smaller scale. We were a day ahead 
of our scheduled time, so our friends were not 
expecting us, and we had ample time to see to 
our .baggage, and store away the pieces we would 
not need, until we should take our ship for 
Manila. We were to be the guests of Canon 
and Mrs. Boyce, at St. Paul's rectory, Eedfern, 
where we had spent a delightful week just four 
years before, and we found the home just the 
same hospitable place. We were to sail the 11th, 
so our days were very busy ones, calling on old 
friends and sight-seeing. The days were all 
too short for us to do, and see all we wanted, 
and Monday the 11th, found us settled on this 
delightful little ship of the China ISTavagation 
Company — ^the "Taiyuun'^ — than which no more 
comfortable ship sails the seas. 

Mark Twain said: "If there is one thing 
in the world that will ma]s:e a man peculiarly 
and insuferably self-conceited, it is to have his 
stomach behave itself the first day at sea.'' 
There is no doubt for the first time in my life, 
I resemble that man, for not only the "first 
day," but all days are happy days, and I bless 
the "Taiyuan'' with my every breath. It is ex- 
quisitely clean, and free from smells. The ser- 
vants all Chinese — except the quarter-masters, 

214 



who are Malays — are attentive and quiet. 
The menu is excellent and dainty as a home- 
table. The ship is smalls only 2,300 tons, but 
most comfortably arranged for this tropical 
journey. The matting and rattan chairs, the 




St. PauVs Sydney. 

linen-covered punkas (the punka is a swinging 
mat, arranged over each table, with cords run- 
ning on pulleys to the end of the dining-saloon. 
where servants stand during meal-time, draw- 

215 



ing the cord back and forthj fanning the passen- 
gers at the table), the awnings on all the decks, 
the electric fans in all the cabins, the servants 
in their long, cool, bine and white linen gar- 
ments, all help to make one feel cool. Therei 
are only twenty cabin passengers — four ladies 
— ^and no snobs. Several go with us to Manila., 
the others to China and Japan. One yonng 
gentleman is from Cairo, and expects to go 
through America, back to Egypt. Several busi- 
ness mien are aboard, who have often made 
this trip, and ahvays by this ship, which speaks 
well for it, for there are some ships I have 
traveled in, that nothing would ever induce me 
to sail in again. 

We left Sidney at 6 p. m. with many friends 
waving good-bye — ^and our cabin fragrant with 
flowers from them. We passed the Heads, and 
then went to dinner. All the evening we were 
in sight of land, and the first thing we saw in 
the morning was land, and so far, we have not 
been out of sight of the low-lying hills of 
Australia. It seems more like a lake trip than 
the ocean, and is much more enjoyable, for we 
seem in touch with the world. The loneliest 
feeling in voyaging is to be days and days on 
the great Pacific, and not see a sail or sign of 
life. The effect of such an experience is de- 
pressing in the extreme. 

216 



The journey of 1,000 miles from Sidney to 
Brisbane, and from Brisbane to Townsville, is 
interesting only because it is novel . It has no 
scenic attractiYeness. We skirted northward 
along the Queensland coast, never out of sight 
of land, and with a sea as calm as an inland 
lake. The coast is historically interesting, for 
the many names Captain Cook in 1770 gave to 
the different places. "Endeavor Eiver,'' where 
he beached his vessel for repairs; "Whitsunday 
Passage/'' where he arrived on Whit Sunday; 
"Cooktown,'' "Trinity Bay,'' "Moreton Bay,'"— 
and so on. From Townsville to Cooktown is 
like passing through a chain of enormous lakes. 
Some of the islands are bare and rugged, others 
thickly wooded, while some are mere sand hills. 

At Cooktown the great barrier reef, which 
extends 1,200 miles along the coast, makes in 
to the shore, so that we pass from Cooktown to 
Torres Strait in a kind of sound, only of vast 
dimensions. This reef — which is of coral for- 
mation — and increasing with every year — ex- 
tends from Sidney, northward to the Straits, 
but is so far out in the sea, we are not con- 
scious of it, until it begins to narrow down. At 
one period of the world's history, it probably 
formed the Queensland sea-coast. 

Wednesday evening at 8 o'clock, we were 
safely anchored at the wharf in Pinkenba, 

217 



where we took the train for Brisbane, 18 miles 
away. It was unfortunate we were there only 
a few hours, for this city of 50.000 people, the 
capital of Queensland, is most picturesquely 
situated on the banks of the Brisbane river, the 
finest waterway in Australia. Of this river 
Lawson. the Xew Zealand poet, has said, "1 al- 
ways thought it a kind of god — .that Australian 
river. If all Australia were like the country 
near the river, Australia would be the richest 
jewel on the whole earth's bosom/" 

Australia is a great country — as large as the 
United States, but with less than five millions 
of inhabitants. The trouble is, that it has no 
interior — ^no back-bone — ^no mountain ranges — 
consequently no great rivers, nor lakes, and so 
only the shore is inhabited, the interior being 
low. arid, unsettled, and for the most part, un- 
inhabitable. 

Of course we could see but little at that time 
of night, but we carried away with us. "photo- 
graphically lined on the tablet of our minds/^ 
a vision of a very up-to date city with fine rail- 
road depot, substantial buildings, well-paved 
and well-lighted streets, and very good electric 
car service. At midnight, we were on board 
again, and steering up Moreton Bay for the 
open sea. 

Saturday night, at 7 o^clock, we reached 

218 



Townville, and anchored in Cleveland Bay for 
two hours, while we took on a cargo of tallow 
and beche-de-mer, a sort of dried snail, or slug, 
caught on the reefs by the natives, and highly 
prized as a great delicacy by the Chinese. We 
also had several Chinese passengers. At every 
port we are ^"^gathering them in'^ — for all who 
can afford it' are going home for the new year. 
At 2 o^clock Sunday we stopped an hour at 
Cairns a little place where there is a famous 
sanitarium — then steamed on to Cooktovni. All 
the way now the sea is in fact a landseape,for 
it is studded with islands, mostly uninhabitated, 
but frequently visited by the aDoriginals in 
search of fish. We saw several dug-out canoes 
with natives in them coasting along the islands. 
We passed Cape Tribulation, where Captain 
Cook came to grief, and saw the horn-shaped 
peak — Peter Botte — look down from a height 
of 3,311 feet — the highest point on the coast. 

Cooktown, of course, is named from Captain 
Cook, who landed here and beached the "En- 
deavor'^ in 1770, when he had been stranded 
on the Barrier Eeef. 

There are many interesting landmarks on 
this coast, and the number of coasters and 
steamers, and war-ships we have passed, has 
added much to our enjoyment. Besides, we have 
seen sharks, whales, and dugong — a large fish, 

219 



apparently a cross between a seal and sea-lion — 
and captured in great numbers for the oil. 

The hundreds of islands situated in the Bar- 
rier Eeef are luxuriant with fruit and vegeta- 
tion. The mountains, or hills^, are low and are 




Ant Hills, Albany Pass. 

within fifty to three hundred miles of the 
coast-line, and the whole coast may well excite 
the admiration of trayellers. 

Our course from Cooktown to Thursday Island 
lay through the famous Albany Pass. Monday 

220 



and Tuesday nights^ as soon as it was dark, we 
lay at anchor, as it is one of the regulations of 
this China I^avigation Company not to travel 
at night among these treacherous reefs. At 5 
a. m., Wednesday, we were np on deck to see 




The last of Australia. 

the wonders of the land and sea. The pass is 
very narrow, with swift current, and the bank 
on either side green with the everlasting gum, 
and curious as to the giant red and white ant 
hills, which were from six to twenty feet high. 

221 



In the distance they looked like one of onr In- 
dian villages;, and when we realized that these 
little insects — not over a third of an inch long 
— ^bnilt these great tepees, the thought of men 
building sk}'-scrapers and great huildiiigs, lost 
some of its wonder. 

We were told that the sailors on the battle- 
ships, which pnt in at these ports, often take 
these ant hills on board, and the inhabitants 
of them not only thrive, but kill the mosquitoe^^ 
and flies. 

Our experiences and observations of this trip 
among these aboriginal islands, has a tendency 
to cause our pride of civilized advancement to 
grow small and beautifully less. There is less 
difference between the child-races, and those 
which fondly think of themselves as adult, 
than we have been taught to believe there is. 

In a few more hours we were in view of 
Thursday Island, and the pilot came aboard. 
The scene as we approach, is very beautiful, 
saddened somewhat by our sailing near a leper 
colony, stretched along the beach of Friday 
Island. 

Thursday Island is the most northerly town- 
ship in Australia, and is the head of the Torres 
Straits' pearl fisheries. It is only a small place 
— now very parched and dry, for the rainy 
season has not begun — about ten miles in cir- 

222 













"^S. 



cumferenee, but very imiportant as being the 
nearest point to New Guinea, and strategeti- 
cally a very important British naval station, 
two men-af-war being in the harbor when we 
arrived. We went ashore and were; fortunate 
in being invited to the home of the largest 
pearl fisher in the island. We saw boxes and 
bottles of pearls, big, little and indifferent, and 
heard about the trade, which was all news to 
us. The fact that only one fine pearl is found 
among a thousand, is much like people. This 
friend showed us boxes of beautiful jewels, 
among which was a beautiful ring, set with 
three black pearls. He told us it took him six 
yea,rs to match these gems. 

The pearls are not the real trade here, as we 
had always thought, but the shells themselves, 
which are the finest mother-of-pearl in the 
world. Our ship took in forty tons of shells 
to be sent to China, Japan and London, to be 
made into buttons and other articles of com- 
merce. 

The diving is both in shallow and deep water, 
and the divers are of many nationalities — but 
the best deep-sea divers are Japanese. They 
have no fear, and can stay under the water 
longer than any other natives. To show the 
truth of their fearlessness, we were told of one 
man who went down into the deep sea, and 

224 




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when they .brought him to the surface, and 
opened the dress they found he was dead. As 
the body was rolled out^ another Japanese 
stepped in, and was lowered at once. The story 
is a grewsome one, but well illustrates the ab- 
sence of fear among this people we have all 
learned to admire during the late war. 

Thursday miorning at 5 o'clock, we left the 
harbor and headed for the open sea. It is our 
last stop, until we reach Manila — nine days 
away. 

XX. 

On board S. S. Taiynan, Dec. 39, 1905. 

I AM beginning this letter in the middle of 
the Maylay Archipelago. 

We spent Thanksgiving in Fiji. The 
celebration was without the orthodox concom- 
itants as to food and public worship, ^o 
-turkey shed his giblets on our account. No 
preacher fanned our enthusiasm with a labored 
patriotic novelty. We feasted, though, on 
great golden bananas, fully twelve inches long, 
and with girth to match. Our fingers dripped 
with the liquid sunlight of pine-apples and 
mangoes. We drank the milk of young cocoa- 
nuts and dead ripe oranges. W^e took God for 
granted and rememxbered our native land with 
thankfulness that knew no bounds. 

226 



minerj and the Australian opals are the finest 
in the world. One stone which he is carrying 
to show Pierpont Morgan, is the tooth of a 
dynosanruS;, petrified in opal of the highest 
quality and worth a thousand guineas, or 
$5,000. A life insurance agent from Sydney, 
going round the world to see it. A bank presi- 
dent from Melbourne, going to Japan for a 
rest — a fine fellow, a cousin of Andrew Lang, 
and like him, brilliant and cultured. A young 
man going to join his family in Shanghai, and 
a young woman going to the same port to join 
her sister. We are all good friends, as befits 
shipmates, and the discussions we engage in are 
better than any show. Like other discussions, 
they settle nothing, biit they show off to good 
advantage the quality of the debaters. The 
passengers are keenly interested in ever}^thing 
American, which makes it easy for me to get 
on with them, and by a good deal of eloquent 
silence, I keep them from realizing how much 
I don^'t, know. We have debated Judaism 
Catholicism, Christian Science, and all varie- 
ties of politics, as well as all the arts and 
sciences, from the beginning of history to the 
remotest future, omitting — ^well, hardly any- 
thing. 

During the forenoon we entered Pitt passage, 
and later, having passed Mangola and Taliabu, 

231 



came out into the Molucca passage. The north- 
east wind continues, and the weather is de- 
licious. Three Avaterspouts appeared on the 

starboard how, but lh:v werr rlistant, and but 
a few drops of rain rc'icbcd u.~. 




Christmas sports, 8. S. Taiynan. 

The afternoon was spent in true nautical hi- 
larity. The decks were cleared for action and 
reaction, purses were made up for prizes, and 
the whole afternoon was consumed in rough, 
good -n;:n red games. I am no sporting editor, 
and cap- ot undertake to describe what hap- 

232 



pened, in detail, but it was superlatively funny, 
and I laughed until I felt like having hysterics. 
There were obstacle races, wheelbarrow races, 
sack races, blind-man^s buff, pillow fights, indi- 
vidual tugs of war, ending with a grand finale 
in which the first cabin passengers pulled 
against the ship^s officers — the captain umpir- 
ing. This gave a somewhat indefinite result, 
for before any judgment could be rendered, all 
hands were in full pursuit of the umpire, whose 
reputation being ruined, was doing his best to 
save his life. The "e vents''' were all won by 
Malay sailors, and Mrs. Woolley presented the 
prices. 

At dinner there were turkey, mince pies and 
ice cream, but the barest courtesy to truth re- 
quires the statement that they were one and 
all a gastronomic burlesque, compared to an 
American Christmas dinner. But we were a 
jolly company and easy to be pleased, where 
good digestion waited on appetite, and health 
on both. 

At 8 o'clock there was a "grand concert,^' 
wherein every number was encored and, at the 
end, every performer given three cheers. There 
were songs of all kinds from those expressive 
of sentiment too tender to be handled at all^, 
and others which had to do with robuster pas- 
sion, in good rag time, down to coster-mongery 

233 



and cake-walking. The captain mesmerized one 
of the passengers^ solemnly calling the ship^s 
doctor to be ready to resuscitate the subject if 
anything went wrong; but the young man did 
not hesitate when informed of the peril. We 
were a loyal company of cosmopolitans, and 
every one of us was willing to lay down his life 
for his ocean. At four bells, lights were out 
and the ship was quiet. It had been a good 
day, and tired merrymakers sleep well, and at 
midnight we crossed the equator without a Jar. 



Three days later. 
I am continuing this letter as we enter the 
Sulu sea. We passed Zamboanga before day- 
light, which was a disappointment, but our 
course lay very close to shore and the harbor 
lights were shining. We knew our flag was fly- 
ing there, or would be in the morning, and that 
the men in charge were our own soldiers. We 
peered long into the shadowy masses that we 
knew were houses lying up against the hill-side, 
hoping to hear or see something that was Amer- 
ican, but there was no sound but the swish of 
the waves along the vesseFs sides. As I write 
now, the sun is rising over Mindinao, and we 
are skirting her palm groves with a feeling of 

234 



having arrived^ for in forty hours, if all goes 
well, we shall see Manila and our children. 

Our passage through the Celebes was Inter- 
esting^ but without anything exciting. The 
sun-sets have been gorgeous, and as it hap- 
pened, quite different from any we have ever 
seen, but why, or even how, is quite beyond me. 
All day Tuesday we were passing active vol- 
canoes, and that would have been exciting if 
there had not been so many on this tour. The 
highest were Mt. Roang and Mt. Sian.- 

It has been a wonderful trip, this cruise. 
Sky and sea and ship and shore have vied in 
messages of peace, and rest, and health, and 
hope, and happiness. We have covered, since 
we left New Zealand, some ten thousand miles 
of sea, with the trade winds blowing constantly, 
but never a roll of the ship, or a moment of 
bad weather. A few hours of oppressive heat 
were all we could have changed for the better. 

When we sighted the south-west extremity 
of Mindinao, this morning at 4 o'clock, we 
were on deck. For eight months we had seen 
only southern lands and southern seas and 
southern constellations and we had often longed 
for something familiar in the land-scape or the 
sea-scape, or the sky-scape. It was dark at 4 
o^clock, and there was no moon, and Mindinao, 
anyway^ was only, vaguely and remotely ours; 

235 



but we were claiming everything that had an 
American flag over it, or nnder it. We had 
just crossed the bow of the hemispheres: the 
Big Dipper blazed on our left, pointing s : vev 
to the north; the Southern Cross hung over 
the "Coal Sack^^ on the horizon to our right. 
We were back. We had arrived. 




236 



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